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PUSSY 



AND 



Her Language 



V^^W^v'yWWWS^yWS 



MARVIN R. CLARK. 



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PRICE, 50 CENTS. 



PU55Y 



AND 



Her Language 



BY 

MARVIN R. 







Including a Paper on the Wonderful Discovery 
of the Cat Language. 



BY 

ALPHONSE LEON GRIMALDI, F. R.S.,etc. 



y 



C^ 



v\ 



CoPYIUGHT 1895 

By MARVIN R. CLARK 



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CHAPTERS. 

L— "IT WAS THE CAT." 

II.— A LITTLE INNOCENT WHO KNOWS THE FAMILY 

SECRETS. 
III.— LIKE UNTO OURSELVES. 
IV.— NELLY AND TOM. 
V.— MEMORY AND INTELLIGENCE. 
VI.— FRIENDS OF THE CAT. 

VII.— SOME REMARKABLE, TRUE STORIES. 
VIII.— HOSPICE DU CHATS. 

TX.— ASTOUNDING REVELATIONS BY THE CAT. 
£.— PROFESSOR GRIMALDI'S WONDERFUL DISCOVERY. 
XL— SIGNS AND SOUNDS. 
XII.— DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGES. 
XIII.— LANGUAGE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 
XIV.— POWER OF SPEECH IN THE FELINE. 
XV.— ILLUSTRATIVE STORIES. 

XVI.— SUPERIORITY OF THE CAT OVER OTHER QUAD- 
RUMINA. 

XVII.— INTELLECTUAL POWER OF THE CAT. 

XVIII.— SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CAT. 

XIX.— GENEROSITY, CUNNNING AND CAMERADERIE. 

XX.— VOWELS AND LIQUIDS PREDOMINATING. 

XXL— CAT WORDS IN COMMON USE. 

XXII.— A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF WORDS. 

XXIII.— A MUSICAL LANGUAGE. 

XXIV.— THE IMPORTANCE OF SIGNS. 



PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 
I. 

"IT WAS THE CAT." 

When, in the fable, that humorcus progenitor of the 
human species, according to that slicker, slyer and still 
more humorous, practical joker, Darwin, the monkey, cast 
about him in a sudden emergency for some useful utensil 
adequate to the purpose of pulling his chestnuts out of 
the fire, his selfish ambition was rewarded by the sight of 
no less distinguished a person than the Cat. Notwith- 
standing the piteous protests and flowing tears of Pussy, 
she was forced into the service of the monkey, and ever 
after there lived in the memory of man that wonderful 
story, from which we get the expressive saying of "mak- 
ing a cat's paw" of anything or anybody. 

The cruelty of the act and the subsequent greed of 
the simian who, despite the appeals of the feline for a 
share in the delicious roast, gave her nothing but the 
smell, of which he could not have deprived her, appeals 
to the indignation of a just public. But the suffering and 
the tears and the cries of the Cat command the sympathy 
of all right-minded people who rest in peace under the 
"Banner of Freedom/' and fight against oppression. The 
moral is demonstrative, as you will see. 

The presiding genius who carries the portfolio and 
administers the affairs of the most important of all the 
divisions of the household — the culinary dtp^rtment — 
the ccok ? wisely appreciates the inestimable value of the 

5 



6 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

Cat, and never fails to make convenient use of the animal, 
even employing- her upon occasions when Pussy becomes 
nothing short of a miracle-worker. Of course, the reader 
may differentiate the story with common sense, but rarely, 
for the word of the queen of the realm of the culinary 
department is as the verity of the Law and the Gospel. 
The mistress may wonder, and a smile of incredulity may 
pass over the countenance of the master of the house, but 
the breakage of crockery and the lavish disappearance of 
spirits, wine and ale, the wonderful growth of the butcher's 
bill, the prodigal wanderings of butter not strong enough 
to sustain its own weight, the overdone appearance of 
the breakfast steak, and the underdone appearance of the 
dinner joint are attributable only to the household pet, 
for the cook hath said "It was the Cat!" Even when the 
mistress sadly discovers the queen of the sacred domain, 
who has the power to poison the food she dispenses, lying 
prone upon the kitchen floor at the dinner hour, the 
fumes of the best brandy escaping from her stentorian 
lungs and her limbs limp as fresh putty, the bouquet of 
the spirits of 1840 comes to the sensitive nostrils of the 
lady laden with the murmurings of the cook, ' It was the 
Cat!" and the faithful mistress intuitively realizes that 
there has been a battle royal between the queen regent 
and the agent of the king of that realm where ice appear- 
eth not, and all skating is done upon rollers. 

When the extensive disappearance of the family pre- 
serves causes inquiry, and the heir of the house is ques- 
tioned concerning his knowledge of the loss, he unhesi- 
tatingly and solemnly declares that "It was the Cat!" 
which is in the usual course of events, and always to be 
believed, even when it is noted by the nurse that the 
nose of the urchin resembles, in color, that of a man 



"IT WAS THE CAT." 7 

whose ways are not those of the temperate, and smelleth 
of strawberry jelly, and his chin resembleth that of one 
who has but recently been thickly coated with raspberry 
jam. 

Now, mark the moral. We loudly censure the mon- 
key in the fable, and smile at the charges of the others, not 
pausing to consider that the sufferings of the flesh are en- 
durable, but the tortures of the mind from undeserved 
censure are frequently beyond endurance. The great 
lover of the Cat, Shakespeare, as if the wrongs of the 
calumniated feline in his mind aptly expresses the feel- 
ings of the Cat, when he says, through the medium of 
Othello: 

"Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 
Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; 
But he that filches from me my good name, 
Robs me of that which not enriches him, 
And makes me poor indeed." 

"Give a dog a bad name, and you send him to" — 
the place not hung with icy stalactites. It is a solemn and 
well-known fact that one of a million dogs gets a bad 
name, while not one out of a million Cats gets a good one. 
It is out of the shadow of this cruel prejudice that I would 
lead the Cat, and place her upon the pedestal to which 
she should have been raised for the admiration of the 
world, long, long ago. 



II. 

A LITTLE INNOCENT WHO KNOWS THE FAMILY SE- 
CRETS. 

When a startling discovery which virtually concerns 
every atom of humanity has been rounded into a fact, so 
that the average human intellect may grasp and, after 
thoroughly comprehending its value, make the proper 
application of it, the sooner it is given to the world for 
the benefit of the human race, if benefit there be in the 
discovery, the better for the world and all that are upon it. 

Such a fact, and one which will go far to revolution- 
ize society, has certainly been discovered, and, I hope, 
may be presented in so clear and comprehensive a man- 
ner that "he who runs may read," and readily realize 
its vast importance to the world, although its development 
will, undoubtedly, spread the greatest alarm wherever it 
is made known. 

It will not be denied, when I make the assertion, 
that in every household, in the hovel of the poorest as 
well as in the mansion of the richest, in the storehouse, 
the factory, the workshop, the mill, the foundry, the news- 
paper office, the schoolhouse, the hospital, the theatre, 
the counting-room, the great libraries, the ships and the 
political headquarters, even in the grand capitol buildings 
at Washington, and penetrating, without hindrance, into 
the very secret Cabinet meetings at the White House, and 
almost everywhere throughout the whole inhabitable 
globe, there exists a spy upon whose ears fall the secrets 

8 



A LITTLE INNOCENT. 9 

of a nation, which, if breathed at some inopportune mo- 
ment, might be its ruin. With an air of insouciant non- 
chalance, this ever-present spy meanders everywhere and, 
with ears alert to catch the softest whisper, gives token 
only of a feeling of innocuous desuetude when scenes and 
secrets of the most astounding character are being de- 
veloped to the understanding. 

From time immemorial these facts have existed with 
the knowledge and consent of everybody, but, strangely 
enough, without a thought that it might be possible for 
the Cat to communicate the secrets thus surreptitiously 
obtained through the careless confidence of humanity. 

The safety of such confidences lies entirely in the as- 
sumption of what has hitherto been regarded as a fact, 
and, although such utterances have been made in the 
presence of this universal spy, there was no possibility 
of their communication to the outer world because of its 
lack of power to do so. The astonishment following the 
recent discovery lies in the fact that this overweening 
confidence of man has been sadly misplaced, for I may 
state with the firmest faith in the proofs which have been 
presented to me, that, notwithstanding the belief to the 
contrary, the whole world has been misguided and the 
ever-present feline community has a language of its own, 
and, further, that it has become intelligible to more than 
one individual, myself among the number. 

The importance of this startling discovery cannot be 
overestimated. It vitally concerns every human being 
in the known world, as may readily be perceived after a 
moment's thought. The possibility of the existence of a 
language as a means of communication of thoughts and 
ideas between animals has, for ages, been a subject of 
comment with many, while to those whose association 



10 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

with and fondness for the animal kingdom cannot but ad- 
mit that there is no doubt concerning the truth. In fact, 
innumerable evidences of signs and verbal communica- 
tions between what are incorrectly stigmatized as dumb 
beasts are constantly being demonstrated to the world 
but, unfortunately, described as evidences of instinct, al- 
though bearing every proof of thought emanating from 
the soul as uttered by the human being. 

I may be considered as aiming too high in my declara- 
tion of what I shall procede to prove, but it is with a 
firm belief that I shall be fully able to substantiate my as- 
sertion and convince the reader. Such wonderful evi- 
dences of the astonishing sagacity of animals have come 
to the knowledge of every man and woman that, when 
these instances are remembered, I consider myself well on 
the road toward demonstrating the assertion that there 
is a language of communication between animals. 

Explain to me, if you can, why, if they do not possess 
souls, when shrouded in slumber, the horse will neigh and 
prance, the Cat will cry, the lion will roar, the monkey 
will chatter and the dog will bark and whine while dream- 
ing, even as a human being will give evidence of a rest- 
less mind when the animal senses are dormant. 

Some years ago I possessed a dog who learned, with- 
out instruction and with little difficulty, to turn the knob 
and thus gain admission through the outer door of my 
house to the interior. Last Winter I was in possession 
of two Skye terriers, to whom I frequently remarked in a 
quiet tone of voice, in the morning, that I would take 
them out for a w^alk in the afternoon, and, at the hour 
when they had been taken out by me upon previous occa- 
sions, they invariably put their noses together and com- 
municated their ideas,. As a result of such communica- 



A LITTLE INNOCENT. 11 

tion first one and then the other, then both worried me 
with their paws and called to me unceasingly, until I kept 
my word with them. These are but two of the countless 
instances which have come under my observation, as 
numberless cases have been met with by others, proving, 
beyond denial, that these and other animals are as fully 
possessed of memory as is that nobler animal, man. 

Call it instinct, if you will, but is that not to be con- 
sidered as more than instinct which prompts the Cat to 
distinguish between the friend and the enemy of its mas- 
ter and mistress, and even to protect them from the at- 
tacks of an enemy at the risk of the life of the animal? 
The number of such instances is legion. Surely the 
faithfulness of our domestic animals cannot be doubted, 
bu^we may doubt the humanity of man to the animal 
kingdom when the evidence of the same senses in what 
are termed the lower animals is said to be instinct, while 
in the human it is called soul and mind. 

It has frequently been remarked by those who have 
made a study of the animal kingdom that the intelli- 
gence of the lower animals, in many matters, is far 
superior to that possessed by human beings. For in- 
stance, the natural, living, breathing barometer is a Cat, 
and there are none better. When a Cat washes herself 
in the ordinary manner, we may be sure of bright, sun- 
shiny weather, but when she licks herself against the grain 
of her fur or w r ashes herself with her paw over the ear, or 
sits with her tail to the fire, there will be a storm. 



III. 

LIKE UNTO OURSELVES. 

At certain stages in our great journey we sit down and 
take a retrospect, going over, hand in hand with memory, 
the old road and carefully treading in the same footsteps, 
looking upon the same scenes, suffering the old pains 
and rejoicing in the same joys. At such times we won- 
der at the misplaced confidences and our unexplainable, 
as well as our unjust prejudices. We admit our prone- 
ness to go with the current when in the swim, and the 
natural lassitude which prompts us, rather than argue a 
point or spur ourselves to the task of disproving what 
may be false, which means work, to take for granted the 
theory of another. We often excuse ourselves upon the 
plea that one cannot find time, in this short li c e, to prove 
everything, and we must necessarily take for granted 
many things, perhaps upon the guarantee of those in 
whom we Uiave confidence, sometimes because it has 
passed into a proverb and at other times for the reason 
that we are too tired to go against the current and set our- 
selves up for oddities or cranks. But we do stop and 
wonder at our prejudices, more particularly because we 
have had occasion so many times to completely 
reverse our opinions, wondering, at the same 
time, how we ever could have jumped at the 
conclusion that because a nut has a sour rind 
it must necessarily have a sour kernel, or that the 
bristling appearance of the prickly outside denoted that it 

12 



LIKE UNTO OURSELVES. 13 

was prickly all through, and for this reason to be avoided. 
We hear a man derided by the mob and follow the 
crowd — we discriminate when a woman is talked about 
derogatively and avoid her because it is the rule — then, 
perhaps, it is in after years, when the object has lived down 
the false assertions, at some certain stage in our journey, 
we look back, wonderingly, commiserate the sufferings 
of one and another and say that it was nothing but preju- 
dice, and then what? Then w r e go on our way and do the 
selfsame thing over and over again. 

How easy it is to do all these things we people of ex^ 
perience can testify. We say, "Give a dog a bad name," 
and so on, but how singular it would sound if one should 
say, "Give a Cat a bad name!" Why, the Cat has it, al- 
ready! Are you sure that the almost universally bad 
name of the Cat is not pure and unadulterated prejudice, 
and, considered as a generality, with the least founda- 
tion in fact? 

You say that the Cat is treacherous, a thief and a lover 
of places, not persons. This is the sum and substance 
of humanity's grievances against the feline. I know of no 
other despicable attributes ascribed to the Cat, and a3mit 
that these would be enough to condemn her, were they 
true. But they are not true, saving only in exceptional 
cases. Providentially for the Cat, she is provided with 
natural means of defence and uses her claws at times and 
very justly when imposed upon. I never knew, or heard 
of, a Cat who deliberately and out of pure viciousness, 
scratched or fought a person whom she might have rea- 
sonably supposed to be her friend. Be just and admit 
this fact. 

Concerning the charge of thievery, I admit that Pussy's 
derelictions have been proven in exceptional cases, but 



14 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

plead, in partial justification, the neglect of master or 
mistress to properly provide for her, and that her food 
was due to her for labor performed, upon the principle 
that "the workman is worthy of his hire." Consider that 
Pussy has ridden your house of mice and rats, and con- 
tinues, day by day, to perform her duty of keeping the 
thieves from your dwelling — that if you profit by her prog- 
nostications, she tells you. far better than a barometer, 
the truth about the weather, long before there comes a 
change — that she even guards your home from intruders — 
that she is the first, if permitted to do so, to welcome your 
home-coming — that she is ever ready, with her gentle 
purr, to express her love for you and with her soothing 
song — the gentlest ever heard — to calm your troubled 
mind. Think for a moment how her winning ways and 
pretty playfulness have amused you for many an hour 
and won a warm place in your heart for the little house- 
hold pet, then justify her for helping herself when you 
either forgot or refused to give her the nourishment she 
had so richly earned. This is by way of justification 
of the feline, in the exceptional case, when she takes what 
may not be regarded as technically her own, although the 
equivalent of the same is rightfully her due. Ask your- 
self if, when you walk into your landlady's larder and help 
yourself to the viands there because your luncheon is 
not ready on time, you are not as great a criminal as 
Pussy, who has been equally neglected. Concerning the 
accusation that she is fond of places and not of persons, I 
will have something definite to say further on. 

There is one undeniable fact concerning animals, 
which is that when associated with man they acquire his 
ways and imitate his habits. Thus the Cat, but, in a more 
delicate manner, soon takes upon herself the temper, man- 



LIKE UNTO OURSELVES. 15 

nerisms, actions and ways of her mistress, and in her life 
imitates the actions of the one who is her admiration and 
involuntary teacher. Cats, in short, are like ourselves, 
and are subject to the same rules that govern all human- 
ity throughout the habitable globe. I cannot better illus- 
trate and prove this fact than by relating a story that 
came under my observation, and from which, while I 
vouch for the truth of it, you may draw your own con- 
clusions* 



IV. 

NELLIE AND TOM. 

I was a boy of eighteen years of age when my mother 
brought home with her, all the way from the State of 
Maine, a Maltese Pussy, of full breed. We called her 
"Nellie." After mother had buttered Nellie's feet, a 
process which she said would always keep a cat from run- 
ning away from home, the aristocratic Nellie became an 
important member of our household, and .never deserted 
us. 

One day I brought home to Nellie a companion who 
had been presented to me by a friend, "Tom," as we 
called the boy, was a pure Maltese, and a giant of his kind, 
a cheerful, clever and peaceable fellow and an ornament 
and pet, for he was admired by everybody who saw him. 
His feet were also buttered, and after a little spat with 
Nellie, who, at first, could see no just reason why Tom 
should encroach upon her domain, the two became fast 
friends, and finally married and raised several litters of 
pure Maltese kittens, all of whom we gave to longing 
friends save one, which we kept for Nellie's sake. 

Tom remained true to his marriage vows for a long 
time, but one day, about six months after his advent in 
the household, he was missing, and the neighborhood was 
searched for Tom. He remained away until the follow- 
ing afternoon, when he returned, looking sheepish, while 
his appearance bore unmistakable evidence of his having- 
been indulging in a debauch. Tom was very crestfallen 
and expressed his sorrow to his spouse Nellie, who would 

16 



NELLIE AND TOM. 17 

have nothing to do with him for several days. Poor Tom 
was disconsolate, and applied to me for sympathy. Of 
course every member of the family reproved Tom for his 
waywardness, but the story of the "Prodigal Son" and his 
return, in tatters, was not forgotten, although the fatted 
calf was omitted, and I was the first to forgive and console 
Tom. I used my influence so successfully with Nellie, 
who was very fond of me, that once more Tom was taken 
into Nellie's favor and everything went on as usual, ex- 
cepting that Nellie gave every evidence of keeping a close 
eye upon her erring liege-lord, who was not fully restored 
to her confidence. 

Some five weeks after., while Nellie was nursing a new 
brood of kittens, Tom turned up missing again. We did 
not go to any trouble that time to search, for him, nor did 
we feel any anxiety concerning the wandering minstrel, 
knowing from our former experience that he was big 
enough and old enough to take care of himself. Three 
weary weeks for Nellie went by while she was worrying 
for her Romeo, although she tried to conceal her anxiety 
behind an appearance of unconcern, while lavishing her 
affections upon her infants. At the end of the third week 
Tom leisurely strolled into the house and sought Nellie's 
presence. He bore an air of bravado which seemed to 
say that he was lord and master of his own family, that he 
had a right to go whither, and stay there as long as he 
pleased. But he was battered and torn, almost beyond 
recognition. One eye was completely closed, much of his 
fur was gone, he limped when he walked, one ear was en- 
tirely bitten through and a portion of it missing, and his 
ii^ad was covered with bloody wounds, while his general 
appearance was emaciated, tattered and forlorn. Nellie's 
tail was a, sight to behold when she spied Tom, and she 



18 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

raised herself to a sitting posture and threw upon the de- 
bauchee a withering look of contempt which sent his tail 
between his legs in less time than it takes to tell it, while 
he completely lost his braggadocio air and slunk off to a 
corner of the room and Nellie returned to her babies. 

After the tramp had received a scolding from each 
one of the family, and been thoroughly cleansed and his 
wounds dressed, he sat down a few feet from his lawful 
wife and moaned and cried for an hour or more, without 
once attracting a look of pity from her. After that he 
approached Nellie and attempted to ask her forgiveness 
for his absence upon some fictitious ground, but that 
faithful one raised herself upon her hind legs, spat upon 
the battered tramp and then deliberately beat him with 
her paws and scratched him with her claws until he slunk 
out of the room, a well reproved if not a better Cat. For 
more than a week, every time Tom made overtures look- 
ing toward a reconciliation, Nellie repeated her chastise- 
ment, and I fully believe if any other Maltese Tom had 
presented himself during that time, she would have taught 
Tom a lesson which he would have remembered to the 
end of his life, by adopting him in Tom's place, and, with 
his assistance, driven out upon the charity of a cold world, 
her wayward and presumably unfaithful consort. But, al- 
though we refused to intercede for him with Nellie, in the 
course of time Tom was partly forgiven and was again 
kept under the watchful eye of Nellie. 

Three months later the vagabond again forgot his 
marriage vows and disappeared. This time we gave him 
up for lost, as he did not return for a month. Consider- 
ing him a thing of the beautiful past, I bought another 
Tom and brought him home to Nellie. Singularly 
enough, the two did not fraternize, although it was not 



NEDLIE AND TOM. 19 

the fault of the new Tom, and Nellie remained, as she sup- 
posed, a widow, with her kittens as her constant care. 
Upon them she lavished all of her affections, spitting at 
and boxing the new Tom whenever he approached them. 

One fine day, to our utter astonishment, the scoundrel, 
Tom strolled in upon the scene as nonchalantly as if he 
had not been off on a long protracted cruise. But this 
time he was covered with sores,' and had, in addition, the 
mange. He was a sorry-looking Tom, and an animal to 
avoid. Even in that condition, I am sure, Nellie would 
have nursed him and doctored him until he recovered, 
had he been faithful to her. But there was no hope of it 
now. She had evidently been thinking deeply about the 
newcomer, and was making comparisons. 

At first he showed contrition, but when he discovered 
the new Tom, who he supposed had asumed his duties 
in the household, he did not become an Enoch Arden, 
but, with fire in his evil eye and without making proper 
inquiries concerning Nellie's unexceptionable conduct, 
with a great bologna sausage of a fuzzy tail and a fearful 
shriek for vengeance, he made for Tom Number Two with 
the speed of lightning, in the stereotyped manner of an 
outraged husband whose lapses of fealty and so on are 
forgotten in the greater sin of an interloper. 

What might have become of the innocent new fellow 
was illustrated in the story of the Kilkenny cats, with this 
difference, that one of the two would have been left on 
the earth, and it wouldn't have been the new fellow, for 
Tom was the maddest Cat you ever saw. When the toc- 
sin of war was sounded by the mangy deserter, Nellie 
sprang for him and there ensued a battle royal. There 
was war to the knife, from the point to the hilt. The 
screams of the combatants were terrific, and the dining- 



20 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

room floor was covered with a constantly accumulating 
mass of Maltese fur. In both the new Tom and Nellie, 
who, alone, was a host in herself, the mangy Tom found 
more than his match, and he was beaten, torn, wounded 
at every point, and a total wreck when he scurried out ot 
the house and took his sorrowful way down the street, 
toward the dock at the foot of Hubert street. Whether 
or not he did the best thing he could have done under the 
circumstances, and went and drowned himself, is more 
original Tom, by the side of Nellie, never knew him more, 
for the new fellow thereafter succeeded to his lares and 
penates and Nellie and he lived happily together until 
Tom number two was shot by some cruel person. After 
that Nellie mourned his loss and refused to be comforted 
with another, although, of course, there were many Toms 
who would have lain down and died for her. She lived 
but a short time after the death of her second husband, 
and died regretted by all of us. 



V. 

MEMORY AND INTELLIGENCE. 

We find, upon looking closely and impartially into 
our natural gifts, that it is memory that fails and proves 
treacherous to us more frequently than any other faculty, 
and as we go on with life, the fact becomes more and 
more apparent. With the Cat, memory never fails her. 
The dog may fail to find his way home, particularly the 
little dog, but the Cat, never. 

Xo more conclusive testimony concerning the memory 
and intelligence of the Cat can be given to a doubting 
world than that contained in the following story from the 
columns of the New York Press. It is also illustrative 
of the love of persons as well as places, by the feline. 
It is recited in a straightforward manner, and I have no 
doubt of its truthfulness. At any rate, if the reader has 
his doubts, he can readily, at the cost of a few cents, paid 
to Uncle Sam in postage stamps, satisfy himself concern- 
ing the story, for names are given and the address is 
plain. "Fritz Heath," says the narrator, "is the noble son 
of a worthy mother, and lives in Syracuse, N. Y. Fritz is 
a large gray and white tomcat. Fritz and his mother 
are the proteges of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Heath. Mr. 
Heath is a telegraph operator in the employ of the New 
York Central Railroad. Both Fritz and Gyp are cats of 
unusual size and beauty. Fritz will roll over, jump 
through a hoop and turn somersalts at command. 
He also has the habit of jumping up to catch the smooth 

21 



22 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

top of the dining-table with his paws and swinging sus- 
pended, while he surveys the prospects of his coming 
dinner. Two years ago there was mourning in the home 
of Heath. Fritz had suddenly disappeared. At night 
Gyp came into the house, sniffed at the basket, which -she 
and Fritz had occupied together since the latter's kitten- 
hood, and walked disconsolately away. The Heath fam- 
ily searched diligently, but Fritz could not be found. 

''When two years had passed by, all but Gyp had near- 
ly forgotten the missing member of the household. She 
could not be induced to go near her basket, which was 
still kept beside the fire, and persistently refused to be 
comforted. One night recently Gyp jumped into her bas- 
ket and, nestling down, began to purr contentedly. A few 
days afterward the Heaths, returning from an evening 
call, saw a cat which, in the darkness, they supposed to be 
Gyp, lying on the doorstep. When the door was opened 
the cat ran into the hallway and out again as quickly. 
A short time later Mrs. Heath heard the crying at the 
door and went down to bring in the homeless cat and 
give it something to eat. As soon as she opened the 
door the cat darted inside. When it came to the lighted 
apartments, Mrs. Heath exclaimed, 'Why, Tom, that's 
Fritz!' Hearing his name, the overjoyed Fritz bounded 
into Mrs. Heath's lap, from hers to her husband's, turned 
somersaults, rolled over and performed all the tricks 
he had been taught, as if to thoroughly establish his 
identity or express hisjpleasure at getting home. 

" Tt surely is Fritz,' thought the Heaths, and they 
examined the cat's right ear. It was split. There was 
little doubt now, but to make assurance doubly sure, a 
small stick was thrown down the stairs, into the dark 
hallway. 



MEMORY AND INTEDLI&ENCE. 23 

" 'Go get it, Fritz/ said Mr. Heath, and the cat darted 
down stairs, returned triumphantly with the stick bal- 
anced in its mouth, a trick, by the way, common enough 
with retrievers, but which few cats have ever been taught 
to perform. After a good supper, the reclaimed Fritz 
went straight to his basket behind the stove and cuddled 
down contented. 

"Gyp at first gave the intruder a sharp rap with her 
paw, but at once recognized her prodigal son, fell on his 
neck and kissed him. Fritz now stays very closely at 
home, for his two years' absence sems to have given him 
an increased regard for the family roof-tree." 

This wonderful power of memory in the Cat has sel- 
dom been surpassed by any other attribute in the feline, but 
there came under my personal observation the following 
astonishing proof of the intelligence and motherly love of 
the Cat for her young, the relation of which will un- 
doubtedly find an echo in the memories of many of my 
readers. 

While residing on Lexington avenue near Twenty- 
fourth street, New York, I had a Pussy who pre- 
sented the world with a litter of three as pretty kittens as 
ever were seen. Their beauty, however, did not com- 
pensate for their burden upon the household, because 
there was no yard to the house. I kept the little ones 
until they were a month old and had grown to be at- 
tractive, and offered them to friends and neighbors, all 
of whom admired, but regretted that they had neither 
use nor room for them. So, one day I tied about the neck 
of each cunning little kitten a bright ribbon, to improve 
their appearance, and having secured the mother cat in 
the kitchen, I took her babies in my overcoat pockets and 
carried them to the Twenty-first street side of Gramercy 



24 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

Park, where I deposited two of them inside the enclosure. 
T then went around to the other side of the great iron 
fence and placed the other baby in the park and returned 
to the house. The day was a cold one in Winter, and the 
avenue is a very busy one during the day, being well trav- 
eled by pedestrians and vehicles, and the park a consider- 
able distance from my residence. Within an hour the 
mother, who was supposed to be securely imprisoned in 
the kitchen, was heard by the servant crying in the front 
area, and upon opening the basement door, I discovered 
the Cat with her three beautiful kittens, all safe and sound, 
returned and claiming my protection. How the Cat re- 
leased herself from her imprisonment in the kitchen, and 
by what wonderful power she found the kittens, whom she 
must have brought through the street, at the risk of her 
life, one by one, is more than I could surmise, and there 
they were. My admiration of her was such that I took 
in the brood and continued to care for them a month 
longer, all the while endeavoring to find homes for the 
little ones, but with no success. Finally, recognizing the 
necessity of getting rid of the kittens, I carried out the 
babies, once more, in my pockets, and deposited them in 
an area of a house, ten blocks away, in a busy part of the 
city, near Fourth avenue. This time I made sure of the 
mother by locking her in a room, but, on returning to 
the house, two hours later, I found the three kittens there, 
and the mother looking at me appealingly. Although 
much disgusted at the determination of the mother, I kept 
her kittens until I had induced some friends to take them, 
after telling the story and persuading them that the chil- 
dren of such a mother must necessarily become wonder- 
ful Cats. 

Illustrative also of the intelligence, as well as the 



MEMORY AND INTELLIGENCE. 25 

praiseworthy liberality and charitableness of the Cat, is the 
story in the Sun of Baltimore, Md., of June 22d, 1892, as 
follows: 

"Mr. James Forwood of Darlington, Hartford Coun- 
ty, has a cat which has developed an interesting trait. Being 
kittenless, she adopted as her own a brood of motherless 
voung chickens, which come to her when she purrs, and 
follow her around wherever she goes. When any of the 
brood stray into a neighbors premises the cat follows, 
and, picking up each. chick carefully by the back of its 
neck, as if it were a kitten, and in the same manner in 
which she had been carried when a kitten herself, de- 
posits it safely upon its own premises. Calling the chicks 
to her, the cat lies down and hovers over them as tenderly 
and as carefully as their feathered mother would have 
done. The chicks appear to accept the situation and are 
thriving." 



VI. 

FRIENDS OF THE CAT. 

The unjust prejudice concerning Pussy extant in the 
United States and England is not common in other 
lands. In fact, nowhere outside of the two great coun- 
tries named is the prejudice tolerated. In Arabia, the 
Cat is worshiped and treated with tendefest care and the 
consideration which is her due for duties well performed 
and properly appreciated. Arabians, who have always 
expressed a great fondness for the feline, in their legends 
trace back the origin of the Cat to the time of building 
the great ark by Noah, and they have a fiction that Pussy 
was sneezed out of the nostrils of the king of beasts, the 
lion. 

Whatever may be the origin of the Cat, one fact is 
undeniable, which is that she is not indigenous to America. 
Some naturalists declare that Pussy w r as brought over to 
America in a ship, and others have arrived at the con- 
clusion that it was the wildcat that took passage to our 
shores on a sailing vessel, and our kind little household 
pet has evoluted from the wild beast of the denser forests. 
The tutelary deity of the Cat is Diana, or Pacht, and, ac- 
cording to Plutarch, Pussy was not only sacred to the 
moon, but an emblem of it, and a figure of a Cat, fixed 
upon a sistrum, denoted the moon, just as a frog on a 
ring denoted a man in embryo. Hence Cats were treated 
with peculiar consideration in Egypt during the reign 
of the Pharaohs. Throughout Egypt, upon the death of 

26 



FRIENDS OF THE OAT. 27 

the family pet, the entire household went into mourning, 
and the Cat's funeral was invariably celebrated with great 
pomp and impressive ceremonies. The bereaved owners 
of the deceased feline testified their sorrow and respect 
for the memory of the lost pet by shaving off their eye- 
brows. The body was always embalmed, and after the 
funeral placed in the temple of Babistis, wdiere it was 
visited at stated intervals by members of the household 
and mourned over as one of the family. 

In the days of Moses and the prophets it was a very 
serious thing to kill a cat. Diodorus relates a story of a 
Roman soldier, a man of bravery, who accidentally killed 
a Cat and was tried, convicted and condemned to die. 
This sentence was executed as religiously as if the Cat had 
been a human being. It was, in those days, a common 
thing to mete out severe punishment for injuries done to 
the feline, and it is to be regretted that some of the stern 
laws of the Egyptians, relating to outrages perpetrated 
upon the innocent animals, have not descended to this 
land and generation, for the better protection of the person 
of an innocent animal that harms no one and is of ines- 
timable value to mankind. 

The Arabs continue to venerate the Cat. Just out of 
Cairo stands a mosque, where, in modern times, Sultan 
El Daher provides all the Cats of Cairo and its vicinity 
in need of sustenance with a plentiful daily repast. From 
flat roof and from terrace, from the dusty streets and the 
multitudes of filthy alleys of the city, and from their thou- 
sands of hiding places, the hungry felines come, at the 
hour of prayer, to get their never-forgotten allowance of 
food, furnished by their ever-faithful friend of the Orient. 
It has been declared to be an outgrowth of superstition, 
but there is justice in the remark, " 'tis true, 'tis pity, and 



28 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

pity 'tis, 'tis true," that the superstition exists only in the 
nobler breast of Sultan El Daher, who feeds his pets, the 
poor, needy and neglected waifs of other households, then, 
with a happy heart filled with the glow of a deed of 
charity well performed, he turns his face to the setting 
sun and prays for the blessing so richly earned. 

Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have hated a Cat with 
as great a fervor as was expressed by him for his Aus- 
trian and Russian foes. In him we have a strong con- 
trast to the great Sultan, although the ridiculous super- 
stition of the great soldier of France has gone into a 
proverb. Even Shylock, with all his sins and hardness 
of heart, had a good word for Pussy, and expressed his 
disgust of a cowardly man by saying, ''Some men there are 
that are mad if they behold a cat — a harmless, necessary 
cat." 

France's greatest Cardinal, Richelieu, was of an oppo- 
site temperament to Napoleon, for he dearly loved the 
Cat. Mahomet possessed a strong passion for the feline, 
which has seldom been equaled. It is recorded of the im- 
mortal prophet that upon one occasion, when a particular 
favorite was lying asleep upon his sleeve, he cut off the 
sleeve and left Pussy in a peaceful slumber rather than 
disturb her rest. Horace Walpole had a favorite Pussy, 
and when she died he mourned her loss so much that the 
ever-living author of "Gray's Elegy in a Country Church- 
yard" wrote an ode on the death of Salina, the lovely 
Tabby of his friend. Many world-renowned people of 
all ages have been noted for possessing large families of 
Cats, a fact due, in some cases, to a superstition, but 
generally from an intense love for the innocent, beautiful 
and useful animal. The author of "The Doctor," Robert 
Southey, when he lived at Greta, near Keswick, pos- 



FRIENDS OF THE CAT. 20 

sessed a large number of plump and healthy Cats, which 
the kitchen-maids nursed and the Keswick apothecary 
dosed. 

In fact, from time immemorial Pussy has been a com- 
panion of the learned. Petrarch had his pet embalmed 
and Andrea Doria, one of the rulers of Venice, not only 
had his dead Cat's portrait taken, but also preserved her 
skeleton among* his choicest mementos. The Cat of Car- 
dinal Wolsey sat by his side when he gave audience or 
received princes. Rousseau loved Cats, and it is said of 
Sir Isaac Newton that he cut a large hole in his barn 
for his old cat and a smaller one, beside It, for the young 
kittens. Edgar Allen Poe wrote a thrilling tale of a black 
Cat, and even the ambitious, bloodthirsty Lady Macbeth 
alludes kindly to the household pet. Dr. Johnson had a 
Cat upon which he doted, and being seemingly desirous 
of perpetuating her fame, he taught her to eat oysters, 
a feat never recorded of any other Cat in history. Henry 
James, the novelist, wrote with his Cat upon his shoulder. 
The effusively polite, sensitively dilettante, conscienceless 
and steel-hearted Chesterfield had one redeeming trait, 
which w r as his love for Pussy, if such a cold-blooded man 
could be possessed of the faculty of loving. When he 
died, he left a pension to his Cats and their posterity after 
them. Paul de Kock, the French novelist, had a family of 
thirty Cats, and De Musset wrote apostrophes to Cats, in 
verse. 

Chateaubriand was passionately fond of Cats, and 
when he was sent as an ambassador to the Pope, the latter 
could think of no more suitable present for the devoted 
son of the Church than his predecessor's favorite Cat, 
which present greatly pleased Chateaubriand and cost the 
great prelate nothing. There is no more familiar figure in 



30 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

the memory of an Englishman than Whittington, once 
Lord Mayor of London, with his Cat. 

The Greek monks of the Island of Cyprus used to 
train the Cats to hunt and kill the serpents with which they 
were plagued. In Sicily the Cat is sacred to Saint Mar- 
tha, and whoever, either by design or accident, kills one, 
it is believed, undergoes seven years of punishment. In 
Hungary they believe that a Cat must necessarily be a 
good mouser, and she is highly prized there for her in- 
estimable qualities. 



VII. 

SOME REMARKABLE TRUE STORIES. 

The delicate movement, characteristic reserve and na- 
tive modesty of the Cat may account for the supposition 
of the ignorant and unappreciative that Pussy is stupid. 
This foolish supposition has been refuted by innumerable 
instances of her intelligence, which, in many cases on 
record and thoroughly authenticated, are marvelous in 
the extreme. I will not delve into ancient, history for 
proofs of the astonishing intelligence of the Cat and re- 
late what is already patent to the world, but will give some 
of the best authenticated incidents which have occurred 
within a few years in our own land. Very recently the 
New York Sun gave an authenticated account of a Cat 
owned by Mr. Chester F. Hall, of Danville, Ind., who, 
when she desires to enter the house, invariably rings the 
bell of the front door and is admitted by the servants. 
This, I imagine, is an expression of more intelligence 
than is often evinced by many of the Cat's traducers 
among the country bumpkins who, with the bell handle 
under their noses, have frequently been known to knock 
upon the door for admission to the house. 

The camaraderie of dogs and Cats, in every land, has 
been significantly narrated in every tongue, innumerable 
times. It has always been noticed that in such associa- 
tions the dog have always bossed the Cat, demonstrating 
his arrogant spirit, resulting from his appreciation of the 
fact that he is the stronger animal and that "might makes 

31 



32 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

right." But within my personal observation this bossism 
is of a good-natured character, and often amusing. Fre- 
quently, too, the canine in the full knowledge of his 
superior strength, uses it generously for the protection 
of the weaker comrade, and I propose to give an in- 
stance of this fact, together with an illustration of the 
characteristic insouciance of Pussy, and the sense of 
order and the amenities of private life as manifested by the 
stronger comrade. 

Some years ago my Skye terrier, "Gyp," had a litter 
of puppies, and we saved one of them, "Jessie," w ho was 
brought up with a pretty little kitten. From Jessie's 
birth she manifested a great liking for Kitty, and played 
with her as good-naturedly and freely as if she had been a 
dog. It is true that Gyp, the mother of Jessie, looked 
upon this fraternizing with disapprobation, often telling 
her puppy that she was lowering herself by such close 
intimacy with the Cat, but the intimacy went on and on. 
One never saw Kittie scratch or hurt Jessie, nor did the 
latter ever injure, nor even anger, the Cat. Pussy per- 
mitted Jessie to play all sorts of pranks with her tail, and 
the laughter of the entire household has often been pro- 
voked by the seeming cunning little ways of both. Jes- 
sie would hide behind the door, and as Pussy came gin- 
gerly along in search of her playfellow suddenly dash 
out upon Kittie, to her palpable consternation, and the 
two would roll over and over each other, on the kitchen 
floor, in each other's arms. Neither dog ever interfered 
with the food set apart for Kittie, nor was there ever a 
wistful glance at the dainties upon her plate. 

One remarkable circumstance, however, proved the 
dogs' ideas of "the right of domain," and demonstrated 
the fact that they considered the kitchen the proper place 



SOME REMARKABLE TRUE STORIES. 33 

for Kittie. She had always been kept "downstairs," and 
never ventured to go above the kitchen floor, excepting 
upon one memorable occasion. The little dogs were per^ 
mitted to remain in the dining room during the time when 
the family were eating. At all other times they were at 
liberty to roam about the house at their own sweet will. 
One day, the kitchen door being left open, Kittie thought 
she would make a new departure, and accordingly strolled 
up the kitchen stairs and into the dining room, tail erect 
and a "lovely day, to-day" kind of a look upon her smiling 
face. Pussy's appearance and her nonchalant impudence 
overpowered the dogs for a moment, and before they had 
recovered from their astonishment Pussy had pre-empted 
a soft cushion on a rocking chair, which was the especial 
resting place of the mother, Gyp, and always regarded as 
particularly sacred to her aristocratic ladyship. This was 
too much for the dogs. Every member of the family 
vacated that chair when Gyp claimed it, and as for Jessie, 
she never dared to get upon that sacred cushion. 

When the dogs had recovered their equilibrium, after 
their astonishment at the temerity of the "kitchen cat," as 
they evidently regarded her, they put their noses to- 
gether and compared notes, after the fashion of canines, 
and then Gyp and Jessie proceeded to the development of 
their theory concerning Cats in the dining room. To- 
gether they went up to the chair, and each seized a corner 
of the cushion upon which Kittie had made herself com- 
fortable and at home, and with a suggestion that she was 
not asked to sit down, deliberately pulled both Cat and 
cushion from the chair, landing Kittie unceremoniously 
upon the floor in a very indecorous manner and very 
much to her disgust. But the affair did not end here. 
Kittie looked from one to the other of her household 



34 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

companions as if doubting the evidence of her senses, and 
as much as to ask them if they did not feel ashamed of 
themselves for treating* a lady in such an undignified man- 
ner? She cast a withering glance at them and sidled 
toward the table, as if seeking protection from some one 
of the family, who were at dinner, and with an injured air 
sat down at my side. This was altogether too much 
presumption for the dogs to stand, and their good nature 
left them as, prompted by the mother, Jessie sidled up to 
Kittie, who looked at the dogs, appealingly, while they 
said, as plainly as could be said by dogs, ''You are not an 
upstairs Cat, Kittie — you are nothing but a kitchen Cat, 
and you have no rights here that we are bound to respect. 
Go downstairs, like a g-ood little kitten, and the cook 
will feed you." 

To this remark Kittie shrugged her shoulders and re- 
fused to budge. Then came the funny part of it, which 
was not at all funny to the Cat. Jessie edged up to 
Kittie upon one side and Gyp sidled up to the other side 
of the Cat, and together they actually pushed her along 
to the kitchen stairs and forced her to descend to her own 
quarters on the floor below. Kittie struggled to get away 
from them and remain in the dining room, but they were 
too quick for her, and downstairs she went, full of 
dudgeon, and never after attempted to encroach upon the 
territory which the little dogs claimed for their own. 

This incident did not disturb the friendship existing 
between Jessie and Kittie, for they continued to be as fast 
friends as ever, but the Cat, certainly, had an idea that 
Jessie had been put up to the job by her mother, and I 
have no doubt that the cunning Jessie told her so. 

Theee two dogs were the terror of the Cats in the neigh- 
borhood, and it was no unusual occurrence to see the 



SOME REMARKABLE TRUE STORIES. 35 

feline skurrying away from our "farm/' with both sky 
terriers at their heels and almost within biting distance. 
Woe betide the Cat that either got their teeth into, for 
they were dead Cats when either Gyp or Jessie caught 
them, as many an occasion proved. Singularly, how- 
ever, they never injured Kittie, but, to show that they 
cherished and protected her, I will mention one occur- 
rence of the many which came under my own eye. It 
was in the summer time, when the windows of the kitchen 
were open. Both dogs were reposing in the doorway 
when there suddenly appeared upon the window sill, a 
Tomcat, who had ventured to come courting Kittie. The 
"Young Lochinvar' eyed Kittie lovingly, and approached 
the innocent young thing with a polite air, saying, no 
doubt, that he would like to persuade her to "tread but 
one measure with young Lochinvar," and that "in all 
the wide border his steed was the best." 

Kittie received the bold suitor, who had not noticed 
the dogs, in his eagerness to get near and his admiration 
of Kittie. The cunning Dulcinea eyed the canines out ot 
a corner of one eye, while she had the other upon the 
approaching Tom, and before he had lisped a confession 
of his love she, with maidenly instinct and appropriate 
modesty, gav^ the customary wild scream, resembling 
that of the maiden in story, when "the villain still pur- 
sues her," and started to her feet. The dogs sprang up 
tn an instant at the call for help uttered by Kiltie, and in 
an instant they landed upon the astonished Lochinvar, 
who, it may be remarked, "never knew what struck him," 
for we put his cold Catship in the ash-barrel, a few mo- 
ments later, and washed the noses of the dogs with a 
rough towel, and the remark that it was a cruel act, while 
laughing in our sleeves at the suddenness of the ''taking 



36 ^USSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

off" and the affection of the little protectors, Gyp and 
Jessie. 

One of the most astonishing' incidents upon record, 
proving the sagacity, as well as the courage of the Cat, 
is of recent occurrence and worthy of recital. The fear- 
lessness of the feline, and the wonderful intelligence mani- 
fested in her attack upon the animal, in it^ only tender 
part, is something astonishing and unaccountable. In 
a combat with a dog, the Cat is frequently victor, but 
seldom has she demonstrated her power of conquering a 
saurian. The incident is narrated by a correspondent of 
the "New York Sun," under date of April 3, 1832, a3 fol- 
lows: 

"One of the most remarkable combats ever witnessed 
in this country occurred on Holmes River, near this 
place, last week. In the battle a Cat and an alligator 
fought for three hours, with the final result in favor of 
the tabby. 

"The alligators have invested the river, and it is con- 
sidered dangerous for any person or animal to go near the 
banks. The saurians are not large, but they appear to 
make up in activity what they lack in size. A house Cat 
belonging to Mr. Walton was in the habit of going to the 
river and feeding on mussels and such fish as it could 
get, and it was noticed several times that when the Cat 
moved along the bank a ripple in the water showed that 
an alligator kept pace with it in the stream. The Cat, 
however, was aware of the alligator's presence, but showed 
no fear. 

"On the day mentioned the Cat approached too near 
the water in its eagerness to get a fish, and was grasped 
by the hind legs by an alligator about three feet long. 
The Cat made a spring and got away, but its leg was badly 



FRIENDS OF THE CAT. 37 

bitten, and bled freely. The taste of blood seemed to put 
the alligator into a frenzy, for it came out on the bank 
and continued the pursuit. The Cat turned on its enemy, 
and then began one of the strangest sights seen in a long 
time. The Cat was so quick that it was impossible for 
the alligator to get a bite at it, and the result was that 
the saurian soon endeavored to beat a retreat to the water. 
But the Cat now began an offensive attack, and cut off 
the way, biting the alligator in the throat and tender spots 
under the arms, until the reptile was bleeding and almost 
exhausted. The fight continued, and when, at last, the al- 
ligator gave up, it was bleeding from a hundred wounds. 
The Cat was, seemingly, unhurt, except in the wounded 
leg, which was injured before the fight began." 



VIII. 

HOSPICE DU CHATS. 

In many civilized countries Cat Hospitals have been 
established, and for many years sustained by subscriptions 
from charitably disposed people. Attached to one of the 
Turkish mosques at Alleppo is a Cat Asylum, founded by 
a misanthropic old Turk, who placed a great value upon 
the Cat, because of the service it had been in ridding his 
granary of rats. In Philadelphia, Pa., there is a Cat 
Refuge, which was established some fifteen years ago, and 
during that time has cared for more than thirty thousand 
Cats. In the city of Paris, France, is a very extensive 
establishment called Hospice du Chats, whose name is an 
indication of its object. It has been in existence for many 
years, and is maintained by sifts from charitable people 
as well as by contributions from the Government and be- 
quests from dead lovers of the household pet. This 
building, covering a very large space of land, is two stories 
in height and expensively built for the exclusive purpose 
of sheltering the Cats of France, and there they have been 
domiciled, nursed through sickness and cared for to ex- 
treme old age, as tenderly as ever human beings were 
nurtured. Rooms are assigned to the sexes and different 
nationalities, halls and chambers are warmed by steam, 
meals are served with religious regularity, and the institu- 
tion is run with the same regard to decorum and precise- 
ness in every detail as is manifested in a well-regulated 
hotel. Many thousands of the feline race have been born, 

38 



HOSPICES DtT CHATS. 39 

nursed, grown to old age and died there, within the hos- 
pitable walls of this admirable hospice, while a hundred 
thousand more have found good homes and tender cafe 
throughout sunny France, by means of the solicitous ad- 
ministration of the officers of the institution. London, 
also, boasts of a similar charity, although the hospice in 
Paris is the model one of its kind, by which all the others 
take pattern. An institution of this kind was projected 
some three years ago by some charitably-d'spcsod ladies 
of New York, but failed to meet the required indorsement 
of the authorities, and being opposed by the "Society for 
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals," which claims to 
have control of the stray Cats, by virtue of its charter, the 
embryo hospice, or Cat Hospital, as it was called, died in 
its inception, very much to the disgust of many wealthy 
ladies, whose admiration of the feline pet had induced 
them to subscribe large amounts for the establishment 
of an institution similar to that of the Paris "Hospice du 
Chats," Perhaps, at some future time, Mr. Bergh's suc- 
cessor may become so far yielding as to permit the erec- 
tion of a suitable institution, upon the plan of the French 
hospice, where sick Cats may be nursed, tramp Cats may 
be cut off in their wickedness, incurably afflicted Cats 
may be chloroformed and healthy and restored Cats may 
procure good homes throughout the country, while the 
breed of the animal may be materially and effectually im- 
proved. Should these objects be accomplished through 
the instrumentality of such a worthy asylum for the sick 
and outcast of our household pets, the delighted ladies at 
the head of such an institution may be induced to add to 
the benefits of the hospice a thorough course of instruc- 
tion in Chesterfieldian politeness and regard for. the. ..feel-., 
ings of their immediate neighbors, to be observed, most 



40 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

particularly, during those hours which, by the usage of a 
well-regulated community, have been devoted exclusively 
to sleep. This course of "belles-lettres" would obviate the 
dernier resort of "belling the Cat," and bring joy to the 
hearthstone of many a would-be slumberer at the witch- 
ing hour of midnight, when the ghosts do walk and fire- 
arms are frequently h^ard in the land, the song of the 
nightingale being supplanted by the peculiar organ of the 
unruly and homeless Cat. 

A scientist by the name of Prof. R. L. Gamier, a 
native of this country, if I am rightly informed, who has 
devoted a lifetime to the devolpment of his theory that 
monkeys have a language of their own, has recently been 
given great encouragement in the pursuit of his inquiries 
by the Government of this country. A large appropria- 
tion was awarded to him for the necessary apparatus, of 
a scientific nature, and for the purpose of defraying his 
expenses of travel through Africa, for the prosecution of 
his experiments, and his demonstration, as he fondly 
hoped, that these animals have a language of communica- 
tion of ideas between themselves. Already he has dis- 
covered one word of their peculiar language, which gives 
promise of better results after he has been enabled to 
properly carry out his experiments. He departed upon 
his journey fully equipped with all the scien- 
tific instruments and aids which money, lavishly expended 
by the Government, could procure. It is expected that 
his experiences will be announced to the astonishment of 
the world and revolutionize the old and fallacious beliefs 
that animals cannot talk and express their feelings one 
to the other. 

Without disparagement of the worthy object of this 
scientist, I desire to call attention to the fact that, like the 



HOSPICES DU CHATS. 41 

poor, we have the Cat always with us, and I would press 
the consideration of their necessities as being pertinent to 
the question of the comfort and enjoyment of the human 
race. That the Government should have considered the 
subject of the monkey language of such importance as 
to warrant the expenditure of a great sum of money to 
Prof. Gamier for the development of this theory is evi- 
dence that the same benign Republic should award a 
much larger sum for the care, protection and improve- 
ment of the breed of our domestic pets and more par- 
ticularly for the development of my theory of the language 
of the Cat, which has occupied the lonely hours of many 
a scientist in this country, and been my study for years 
past. When the proper time arrives, I shall hope for en- 
couragement from our Government, which has been my 
Government for the past half century, for the further de- 
velopment of the theories, proofs of which I shall submit 
to the public. While I favor missionary work, I may be 
like many others who claim that "Charity begins at home/' 
and recommend the Government to make an instant ap- 
plication of the doctrine, to the end that it may have a 
wholesome effect, intimating that the protecting Protec- 
tion is that which protects our own, and particularly our 
household oets. 



IX. 

ASTOUNDING REVELATIONS BY THE CAT. 

Under the classification of remarkable instances of 
the intelligence of animals, T omitted one instance, per- 
tinent to this story and astonishing to me, unless it may 
be regarded as an accident. I will give it wi hout the least 
coloring of the truth. The manuscript of the preceding 
part of this treatise was prepared some time ago, and 
placed in a drawer of my desk with many other roll > 
of writing, the drawer being filled with them. For sev- 
eral successive nights I heard a peculiar noise in this 
drawer, but, although the sounds emitted seemed to indi- 
cate the gnawing of a mouse, I could not bring myself 
to the belief that such a busy little animal could gain ac- 
cess to the drawer, or would be able to find anything at- 
tractive to him there. However, my amanuensis, having 
occasion to open the drawer one day, exclaimed with sur- 
prise that the mice had been making a nest in the drawer. 
Upon examination w T e found that the paper gnawed was 
this article treating upon the enemy of the mouse — the 
Cat — while the other rolls of manuscript remained un- 
touched. Now, whether this act was committed in a spirit 
of vandalism and to demonstrate the hatred of the destroy- 
ers for the subject of the story, or with a mere wanton de- 
sire to destroy my property, I cannot surmise. Certain it 
is, however, that they singled out this matter about the 
Cat, and left uninjured the other manuscript, thus demon- 

42 



ASTOUNDING REVELATIONS BY THE CAT. 43 

strating the fact, it seems to me, that the Cat story and 
none other was the object of their search. 

It was at the time when my attention was called to 
the subject of the simian language that my memory re- 
curred to an important document in my possession re- 
lating to the Cat. After a prolonged search, with a de- 
termination to rescue it from the oblivion into which I 
had unintentionally cast it, I, with more success than gen- 
erally rewards such searches, discovered the document, and 
will have the pleasure of presnting it to the public, giv- 
ing it a free translation from the French, in which lan- 
guage it is written. The history of this wonderful docu- 
ment is short. Some years ago I was the editor of a 
New York morning newspaper, and one day there chanced 
to call upon me at my office a French gentleman ol 
about fifty years of age, rather short in stature, fairly 
well dressed, with a benevolent countenance, bright, black 
eyes, regular features with the exception of a prominent 
ncse and the unmistakable stamp of a litterateur. His 
hands and feet were small, and he had a nervous air about 
him while he gesticulated in the expression of his ideas, 
and spoke in a mixture of French and English, just as 
all pure Frenchmen are accustomed to do. 

He had previously sent in to me his card, which read 
thus: 

"Alphonse Leon Grimaldi, F. R. S., F. G. S., M. O. 
D. H. du C, M. F. A. S., M, F. A„ et al, 
"Rue de Honore, 13, Paris. 

"Metropolitan Hotel, X. Y." 

Prof. Grimaldi, the French gentleman, presented him- 
self to my wondering eyes as I rose to meet him, and ex- 
tended his hand with a Chesterfieldian bow, exclaiming, as 
neariy as my memory serves: " 



44 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

"Jais ver happy for zc honaire of ze attention pour le 
editaire of one great journal." 

I replied, of course, that I was proud to meet him, 
and asked what he desired to know, and how I could 
serve so great a scientist, for the reputation of this great 
man and his wonderful scientific researches and discover- 
ies had reached my ears upon the wings of many foreign 
messages even then. 

As I replied to the Professor in his native tongue, he 
expressed himself as being more at his ease, although 
he offerd to converse with me in English, a language in 
which, he said, "he was perfectly at home, and spoke 
fluently," as all Frenchmen pride themselves upon being 
able to do after a month's practice, without taking into 
consideration that Webster claims words in our language 
to the extent of six figures. However, I considered my 
French much more comprehensible than his English, and 
the conversation was continued in that language, very 
much to his delight. 

He informed me that he had made a life study of the 
animal kingdom, and that, for many years, unknown to 
his most intimate friends and associates in the scientific 
world, he had made a particular study of the Cat and its 
habits, while of late years he had come to the conclusion 
that Cats have a language all their own. To my surprise 
he informed me that he had demonstrated in a paper, 
which he drew from his pocket, the fact that upon his 
theories, and by a close observation of the rules set down 
in his manuscript upon the Cat language, the whole world 
might acquire it. He presented me with the document in 
recognition of my sympathy with him in a subject so near 
his heart, and expresed a hope that I might find time in 
the near future to examine &nd print his theories and tile 



ASTOUNDING REVE'LATTONS BY THE CAT. 45 

results of his investigations. The reason for his keeping 
the facts of his researches a secret from his most intimate 
friends and his scientific brethren, he remarked, was that 
if he had not carried the subject to a successful termina- 
tion, he ii ver could have lived through the sarcasm and 
taunts of those men of science, who would have over- 
whelmed him with abuse because of his failure. 

I glanced at the title of the paper, and, a r ter thank- 
ing him for his valuable gift, and promising to r.ad it 
at some leisure hour, I bade him adieu, and resumed my 
duties, having placed the paper in the editorial desk. 

To those who are aware of the numberless documents 
and the thousands of ari Jes upon various subjects which 
accumulate in and about the desk of an editor, I need 
not explain that this paper was soon buried, so that when 
my meory recurred to it, a month later, the document 
could not be found, and I finally gave up my quest, and 
considered the paper last beyond recovery. Imagine my 
rejoicing, however, when, but a few months ago, I found 
it intact, and perused its contents with great surprise. I 
was the more rejoiced at its recovery because it verifies 
my own theories, and proves beyond a doubt that the Cat 
has a language whLh may be spoken by anybody who 
will make a study of it. What wonders this discovery 
will work in every community of the civilized world may 
better be imagined than described. The accumulated 
secrets of many years will be told, and crimes and mis- 
demeanors which until now have baffled inquisitors will 
be unearthed- and the perpetrators punished; little pecca- 
dillos will be given to the gossipers, and even the tender 
passages between John and his girl in the parlor or the 
sitting-room, in the arbor, or upon the way through 
"lovers land," wall become subject for tattle among: gos- 
sipers. 



X. 

]?ROF GRIMALDI'S WONDERFUL DISCOVERIES 

It is scarcely necessary to recount the wonderful re- 
searches of the great Prof. Grimaldi, the great French 
naturalist. His name has become a household word, and 
his fame world-w T ide. When I unearthed his carefulb 
prepared paper it was yellow with age, but his chirographv 
was a marvel of neatness, and distinct as copper plate. I 
have made a literal translation of it, and will give it in his 
own words without emendations. 

THE CAT 

By Alphonse Leon Grimaldi, F. R. S., F. G. S., M. O, S., 
D. H. du C, M. F. A. S., M, F. A., et al. 

I was born with an intense passion for animals. I 
am a Frenchman, therefore am I a man of strong passions. 
I have not married. My love is for the animal kingdom, 
and it has been returned to me one hundred fold all my 
life. In woman there is deceit, and in ma;i deception 
rules his nature. If I treat an animal with kindness, 1 
will, invariably, be overwhelmed with gratitude. The 
animal never bites the hand tkat feeds it — the hum-n being 
frequently does. Therefore, I live among animals and 
center my affections in them. I have made my unalter- 
able choice. I teach the gentler manners and the mag- 
nanimity, ^perhaps the greater intelligence of those of 
God's creatures who are far above their self-constituted 
masters, and their inexhaustible love of even the hand 
that smites, if it be the hand of a beneficiary. You have 

46 



PROP. GRIMALDI'S WONDERFUL, DISCOVERIES. 47 

repeatedly noticed that a large and powerful dog can 
never be persuaded to attack or oppress a smaller or a 
feebler one. Tell me how frequently you have known a 
man of influence, power, riches or strength, to oppress 
and take advantage of a feebler or poorer one? Is it 
not a daily, nay, hourly occurrence? Have you ever seen 
a healthy animal oppress a sickly one? Never! Times 
without number you have been an eyewitness to the 
tender care and solicitude of the well for the sick animal, 
and as frequently you have seen the unfortunate provided 
with every necessary by his more fortunate comrades. 

How often do you find these traits in the human 
being? For this, and for many other reasons with which 
I might tire you, I love all animals but man. 

Men declare that only the biped, man, is endowed 
with reason. It is false. It is so declared, in order that 
man may possess one characteristic that will elevate him 
above, and distinguish him from what he chooses, falsely, 
to call the lower animals. 

Your Noah Webster, who padded your dictionary in 
order to make a formidable book, like many another man, 
says that animals are not possessed of reasoning powers, 
but have only instinct. He gives the definition of instinct 
as follows: "INSTINCT. A certain power or disposition 
of mind by which, independent of all instructions or ex- 
perience, without deliberation, and without having any 
end in view, animals are unerringly directed to do spon- 
taneously whatever is necessary for the preservation of the 
individual or the continuation of the kind." 

This is your American authority, and you must ac- 
cept it, for you have adopted the dictionary. By this 
definition, and with only one question, I will prove to you 
that animals have reasoning powers, just as men have. 



4S PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

Have not animals an end in view when they gather their 
food and build their homes for the winter months, when 
they rear their young, anticipate the coming of the night 
and of that longer night constituting the darkness of age 
and death, when preparing for the coming of their Mas- 
ter, and when, with a grand evidence of their superiority 
over man, they anticipate the changes of the weather? 

The intelligent man admits that animals not only 
have minds, but that they reason also. The sooner the 
whole world admits this fact the sooner we will arrive 
at the truth in the premises, and give the feline her due 
as well as be just to other animals. The study of natural 
history unfolds to the mind a new universe of beauty, 
interest and profit. The beautiful book of nature i3 spread 
out in inexhaustible profusion to all creatures, and no one 
can claim a monopoly of this grand study. Other ani- 
mals read it constantly, and seem to understand it better 
than man. Man has not been able, with all his knowledge 
of science, to make a barometer which will give as uner- 
ring calculations concerning the w T eather as, will the ani- 
mals which he considers beneath him in intelligence. I 
instance more particularly the wild goose, who will indi- 
cate the temperature of the season, and I will remark that 
there is no compass or needle which can indicate thj 
course of a pigeon while it navigates the air equal to its 
own instinct. In the hydraulics of nature, the beaver 
stands foremost of all living creatures, and the bee is the 
greatest builder in the world. Do you not admit that ''in- 
stinct" will no longer answer as a name for intelligence 
in what you call the "brute" animals? Is it without de- 
liberation and without having an end in view that, when 
you take a young pigeon from the cote in which it was 
hatched, and carrying it in a coop to a r distance of four 



PROF. GRIMALDI'S WONDERFUL DISCOVERIES. 49 

hundred miles nom its home, you free it, and it tikes 
its flight in a bee line for the cote in which it was born? 
What shall that quality of mind be called? 

Dogs, Cats and other animals have been carried for 
hundreds of miles from their homes, and but a few days 
elapsed before they return to the place from whence they 
were taken. Have they ' k no end in view/' and is this done 
"without deliberation?" 

There is a species of fish-hawk, in your Northern 
lakes, which has most remarkable eyes, microscopic as 
well as telescopic. You may often see this 1 fellow, early 
in the morning, hovering over the placid water of some 
lonely lake, when he will suddenly dart off, leave the 
water and take up his position upon the bare limb of a 
blighted tree, and watch the track over which he flew. 
Presently you will see him leave his high perch and, wi.h 
the accuracy and velocity of an arrow, strike the bosom 
of the lake, grasp a fish and bear it to his perch. 
Nature has furnished this wise bird with a bait which 
enables him to become a successful fisherman. He has 
in his throat, or aesophagus, a small sac, in which he 
secretes a kind of oil. This oil he drops upon the sur- 
face, the fishes are attracted to it, and at once f.iere i3 a 
great commotion in the water. The hawk, seeing this, 
takes advantage of the situation, and pounces upon his 
prey. 

It is silly in man to assume that all he sees is but the 
effect of law. It is more sensible to assume that there is 
an intelligence behind law and matter. The intelligence 
shown in plants cannot be denied. Take, for instance, the 
aquatic plants. They will travel long distances over 
walls and other impediments before they will stop their 
growth. 



50 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

That animals have a moral sense is evidenced in the 
fact of the prominence in their natures of the attributes of 
reason, memory, invention, motive, ingenuity, will and 
gratitude. Granting these premises, and grant them you 
must from the proofs which I have submitted to you, and 
which have come under my own observation, you must 
admit that animals reason and think and give the same 
evidence of free intelligence observable in human nature. 

That dogs, Cats, horses, elephants, birds and even 
pigs can be taught to do most w r ondenul things, millions 
of people can attest from personal observation, and you 
have the proof in your own minds, to show free intel- 
lectual ability on the part of wild and tame animals. 

In my love for the Cat and my preference for that 
beautiful animal above all others, I do not stand alone. 
Nearly all men of note among the learned, as well as 
others, both in ancient and modern times, have signified 
their preference for the Cat in the strongest terms. Ma- 
homet almost worshipped the Cat, and declared that his 
own should have a prominent place in his heaven. Rich- 
elieu possessed a house full of Cats, with twenty favorites, 
whom he cherished with great care and fed with his own 
hands. Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Moore, Talleyrand, 
Edgar Allen Poe, Chateaubriand, Robert Scuthey, Dr. 
Johnson, Benjamin Franklin, Julius Caesar, Thomas 
Gray, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Walter Raleigh, Cardinal 
Wolsey, Rousseau, Lord Chesterfield, Whittington, Lord 
Mayor of London/ Plutarch, and thousands of others, 
have expressed their admiration of my favorite. Ancient 
history tells us of more than one nation that sainted the 
Cat, while others still hold the animal in high veneration. 
Certainly it must be admitted that the Cat possesses some 
wonderful attributes the evidence of which prompts its 



PROF. GRIMALDI'S WONDERFUL, DISCOVERIES 51 

distinction. I claim for the Cat a higher order of intel- 
lect than exists in any other animal. While I love the 
dog, and claim for him a greater degree of intellig nee 
than may be accorded to the horse, I class the Cat and the 
dog to be as distinct in their individuality and with as 
much difference as you see existing between man and 
woman. The organism of the Cat is of a very delicate 
nature, and, therefore, more susceptible to all influences. 
They are quicker of perception than any other animal, 
and, therefore, they more readily acquire knowledge. 

By an extended series of experiments I have demon- 
started this fact, and would give the results of my labor 
were I not positive that my readers have made a com- 
parison of the dog and the Cat, and arrived at the same 
conclusion without anything more than a casual observa- 
tion. In experimenting, however, my attention was di- 
rected with more particularity to the manner of communi- 
cation of ideas between Cats, and what was my sur- 
prise to discover that they have a language of their own, 
embracing not only words but, in a large degree, signs. 
You may the better understand me when I call attention 
to the fact that there are few T words, comparatively, in the 
French language, but there is, among Frenchmen, a sign 
language; as, for instance, there is no word to express the 
meaning or our shrug of the shoulders and the extending 
of the hand and forearms. Words cannot express the 
feelings of the heart when men and women of every na- 
tivity bow their heads before their God. Because of this 
predominance of signs in the language of the Cat, it will 
be difficult for me to describe their mode of idea-com- 
munication ; but I will make the attempt, and endeavor to 
bring it as clearly as possible to your minds, in order that 
you may comprehend it as distinctly as it presents itself 
to mine. 



XI 

SIGNS AND SOUNDS. 

Language signifies the expression of ideas by sounds 
and by certain articulate sounds which are used as the 
signs or the ideas, sounds being regarded as mere aids and 
of secondary importance to signs, which are, primarily, 
of the greatest importance in language. 

By articulate sounds I mean those modulations of the 
simple voice or of sounds emitted from the thorax, formed 
by means of the mouth and its several organs, namely, 
the teeth, the tongue and the palate. When wc give a 
name to anything harsh or boisterous we, of course, use 
a harsh or boisterous sound, the better to describe our 
meaning. By the use of such words as express such 
sounds we convey the ideas intended to be expressed. 
It is purely natural to imitate, by the sound of the voice, 
the quality of the sound or noise which any external 
object makes, and to form its name accordingly. In 
every language will be found a multitude of words con- 
structed upon this principle. We call a certain bird a 
cuckoo because of the peculiar sound which he emits. 
Regard the fact that in English one kind of bird is said 
to "whistle," another to "chirp," a serpent to ''hiss, 1 ' a fly 
to "buzz," a bee to "hum," falling timber to "crash," a 
stream to "flow," hail to "rattle," rain to "patter," a bell 
to "tinkle" or "jingle," or "toll," or to "clash" with another, 
a board to "creak," thunder to "roll," lightning to "flash" 



SIGNS AND SOUND'S. 53 

and a cataract to "roar." In these instances the analogy 
between the word and the thing expressed is most plainly 
discernible to the ear. Notice, also, if you please, that in 
the names of objects which address the sight only, when 
neither noise nor motion are concerned, and still more in 
the term applied to moral ideas, this analogy appears to 
fail. This shows a superiority of signs over sounds, and 
is one reason for according to signs, over sounds, a pri- 
mary importance. I have noticed, however, that many 
learned men have been of the opinion that though in such 
cases the meaning becomes more obscure, yet it is not 
altogether lost, but that throughout the radical words of 
all languages th.re may be traced some degree of corre- 
spondence with the object signified. 

Perhaps no language is so peculiar a mixture as your 
own, by which I mean the English, which is neither pure 
nor indigenous. The rule applies to other languages to 
a far less degree, but still it applies. As the multitude of 
names increases in every nation and the immense fLld of 
language is filled up — if it ever gets filled up — words by 
the thousands, fanciful and irregular methods of deriva- 
tion and composition, come to deviate widely from the 
primitive character of their roots and lose all analogy 
or resemblance to sound in the thing signified. It is in 
such a heterogeneous state that we find words of sound- 
signs in language. 

Nature taught the members of the animal kingdom 
to communicate their feelings, one to another, by those 
expressive cries and gestures which are so descriptive. 
Afterward, names of objects were invented by slow de- 
grees, in aid of signs. This mode of speaking by natural 
signs could not be all at once applied, for language, in 



54 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

its infancy, must have been extremely crude, and there 
certainly was a period in the history of all rude nations 
when conversation was carried on by the use of a very 
few words, intermixed with a multitude of exclamations 
and earnest gestures significant of the meaning intended 
to be conveyed. 

In the early days, the small stock of words which 
were in use, rendered signs absolutely necessary for ex- 
plaining the conceptions and rude, uncultivated beings, 
not having signs at hand, with the few words which 
they knew it was naturally labor to make themselves 
understood by varying their tones of voice and accom- 
panying their voices with the most significant gesticula- 
tions they could make. 

The primitive search was for signs and sounds which 
bore an analogy to the thing signified. The pronuncia- 
tion of the earliest sounds of the languages was accom- 
panied with more gesticulations and with more and 
greater inflections of the voice than we now use. Cer- 
tainly there w^as more action in it, and it was conducted 
upon more of a crying or a singing tone. Necessity first 
gave rise to this primitive yet admirable way of speak- 
ing, and it may be said of it that it was action explanatory 
of meaning. 

Inflections of voice are so natural that to some na- 
tions it has appeared easier to express different ideas by 
varying the tones in which they pronounce the same word 
than to contrive words for all of their ideas. I instance 
the Chinese in particular. The number of words in their 
language is not great, but in speaking they vary each of 
their words by not less than five different tones, by which 
they make the same word signify five different things. 



SIGNS AND SOUNDS. 55 

This gives the appearance of singing, or music, to their 
speech, so noticeable in their conversation, for these in- 
flections of voice, which, in the infancy of language, were 
no more than harsh or clisconsonant cries, must, as lan- 
guage gradually becomes more polished, pass into 
smoother and more musical sounds. Hence is formed 
what is styled the prosody of language. 

It is remarkable and deserves attention that both in 
the Greek and the Roman languages this musical and 
gesticulating pronunciation was retained in a very high 
degree. The Greeks, it is well known, were a more musi- 
cal people than the Romans, and carried their attention 
to the tone and pronunciation much farther in every pub- 
lic exhibition. Aristotle, in his poetics, considers the 
music of tragedy one of its chief and essential parts. The 
case was more than parallel in regard to gestures, for 
strong tones and animated gestures always go together. 
At last gesture came to engross the stage wholly, for under 
the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius the favorite enter- 
tainment of the public was pantomime, carried on entirely 
by gesticulations. 



XII. 

DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGES. 

A Frenchman both varies his accents and gesticulates 
while he speaks much more than an Englishman, and an 
Italian a great deal more than either. Musical pro- 
nunciations and expressive gesture are, to this day, the 
distinction of Italy, and this combination of sign and its 
aid, sound, the latter being notes for its music, make the 
sweetest and most liquid language in existence. The want 
of a proper name for every object, obliged them to use one 
name for many objects, and, of course, to express them- 
selves by comparisons, metaphors, allusions and all those 
substantive forms of speech which render language figur- 
ative. 

Poetry is more ancient than prose, and here we have 
a remarkable order of speech, such as "fruit give me.' 4 
I, therefore, conclude, as the first fundamental principle in 
the organization and procession of word-signs, that this 
would be the order in which words should be most com- 
monly arranged at the beginning of language, and ac- 
cordingly, we find, in fact, that in this order words are ar- 
ranged in most of the ancient tongues — the Russian, Slav- 
onic, Gaelic, and many others. In the Latin *ne arrange- 
ment which most commonly obtains is to place nrst in the 
sentence that word which expresses the principal object, 
together with its circumstance, and afterward the person 
or thing which acts upon it. 

I desire to impress most particularly upon the reader 

56 



BESCRIPTIVE [LANGUAGES. 57 

the value of signs and sounds in the language, for he 
would be a fool, indeed, who would not mark the signifi- 
cance of a tone or a gesture. 

The word-signs in the English! language number 
thirty-eight thousands. This includes, of course, not only 
the radical words, but all the derivatives, except the pre- 
terites and participles of verbs, to which must be added 
some few terms which, though set down in your dictionary, 
are cither obsolete or have never ceased to be considered 
foreign. They have been introeluced into your Noah 
Webster, "unabridged," together with many thousands of 
conjunctive and scientific words, for the sole purpose ol 
making a big book and claiming that there are one hun- 
dred thousand word-signs in the English language. Of 
the thirty-eight thousands about twenty-three thousands 
are of Anglo-Saxon origin. The ma]onty of the re- 
mainder, in what exact proportion I cannot say, are 
Latin and Greek, but the largest share is Latin. The 
names of the greater part of the objects of sense, in other 
words, the terms which occur most frequently in dis- 
course, or which recall the most vivid conceptions, in the 
English vocabulary, are Anglo-Saxon. The names of 
the most striking objects in visible nature, of the chief 
agencies at work and of the changes which pass over it, are 
Anglo-Saxon. 

This language has given names to the heavenly 
bodies, namely, the sun, the moon and the stars, to three 
out of every four elements, namely, earth, fire and water; 
to three out of every four seasons, namely, spring, summer 
and winter, anel, indeed, to all the natural divisions of 
time, except one, as day, night, morning, evening, twi- 
light, noon, midday, midnight, sunrise, sunset, some of 



58 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

which are among the most poetical terms in the language. 
To the same language we are indebted for the names 
of light, heat, cold, frost, rain, snow, hail, sleet, thunder, 
lightning, as well as almost all those objects which form 
the component parts of the beautiful and external scenery 
as seen in land, hill and dale, wood and stream. It is 
from this language you derive the word most expressive 
of the earliest and dearest connections and the strongest 
and most powerful feelings of nature, and which are, 
consequently, invested with your oldest and most com- 
plicated associations. In this language w T e find the names 
of father, mother, husband, wife, brother, sister, son, 
daughter, child, home, kindred, friends. It has furnished 
the greater part of those metonymies and other figurative 
expressions by which is represented to the imagination, 
and that in a single word the reciprocal duties and enjoy- 
ments of hospitality, friendship or love. Such are hearth, 
roof and fireside. The chief emotions of which we are 
susceptible, as love, hope, fear, sorrow, shame, and what 
is of more consequence to the orator and the poet, as well 
as in common life, the outward signs by which emotion is 
indicated, are almost all Anglo-Saxon. Such are tear, 
smile, blush, to laugh, to weep, to sigh, to groan. 

Most of those objects about which the practical reason 
of man is employed in common life receive their names 
from the Anglo-Saxon. 



XIII. 

LANGUAGE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. 

One of our greatest poets says, 

' Tis not enough no harshness gives offense, 
The sound must seem an echo of the sense/' 
The words buzz, crackle, crash, blow, rattle, roar, 
hiss, whistle, and many others of a like nature and con- 
struction, were evidently formed to imitate the sounds 
themselves. Sometimes the word expressing an object is 
formed to imitate the sound produced by that object, as 
wave, cuckoo, whippoorwill, whisper, hum. I have been 
thus particular in calling the attention of the reader to 
these beautiful characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon be- 
cause it is the language of the Cat in so far as word-signs 
are used in it for want of action to express the ideas or as 
conjunctives more particularly. The smooth and liquid 
passages from your poets, which express onomatopoeia, 
are but echoes from that most beautiful of all languages, 
that of the Cat. Such are the word-signs of Goldsmith, 
"The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor, 
The varnished clock that clicked behind the door. ,, 
To the credit of the Cat language it must be said that, 
while it is esteemed a great beauty in writing and con- 
versation, as well as speaking, when the word-signs se- 
lected for the expression of an idea convey, by their sound, 
some resemblance to the subject which they express, the 
Cat language contains none but such words. You will 

59 



(50 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

remember the most wonderful poem written in the Eng- 
lish language, and notice the word-painting in the follow- 
ing extract from "Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard/ 
"For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, 

This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, 
Left the warm -precincts of the cheerful day, 
Nor cast one longing, ling ring look behind!" 

Pope, also, in his "Essay on Criticism," in a man- 
ner though different yet scarcely less expressive, gives a 
verbal representation of his idea, by the selection of his 
terms in the following: 

"These equal syllables alone require, 
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire, 
While expletives their feeble aid do join, 
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line." 

And, once again, Pope says, 
"A needless Alexandrian ends the song, 
That, like a wounded snake, drags his slow length al .,::;;. 
Soft is the strain when zephyrs gently blow, 
And the smooth streams in smoother numbers flow, 
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, 
The hoarse, rough verse should, like the torrent, roar. 
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, 
The line, too, labors, and the words move slow. 
Nor so when swift Camilla scours the plain, 
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main, 

I am of the opinion that language is of DivnK 
origin, and that it was put into the mouth of the Cat, the 
same as it was put into the mouth of Adam, by tht 
Almighty. In this opinion I am encouraged by many 
of your most prominent writers. In fact, it is the onl> 



LANGUAGE OF DIVINE ORIGIN. Gl 

sensible theory upon which we can stand. But the very 
first expression of a desire was a sign by action of the 
muscles, frequently followed by a sound-sign. This has 
often been demonstrated when infants have been placed, 
for a year or more, in a room where no speech or ex- 
pressive action has met either eye or ear, and it has not 
yet been doubted. Many men have written upon the 
subject of the origin of language, from every point of 
view, the majority of these endeavoring to account for 
its existence without allowing that it is of Divine origin. 
Undoubtedly the first man, Adam, could talk as naturally 
as he could hear, see and taste. Speech was a part of 
his endowment. Is there anything more wonderful in 
man's talking than in a bird singing, save that speech 
is a higher order of utterance? Dumb nature, so called, 
performs marvels every day as wonderful as man talk- 
ing. The honey bee builds ils cell, ignorant of the fact 
that such a construction is a solution of a problem which 
had troubled men for centuries to solve — namely, at what 
point should certain lines meet so as to give the most 
room with the least material and have the greatest 
strength in building? This problem is said to have beer 
worked out by a Mr. McLaughlin, a noted Scotch mathe- 
matician, who arrived at his conclusion by a laborious and 
careful fluctionary calculation. To his surprise and the 
surprise of the whole w r orld, such lines and such a build- 
ing were found in the common bee cell. Is there any- 
thing preposterous in my assertion that the same Creator 
who gave to the bee the mathematical instinct, could 
endow animals with the instinct of speech? In propor- 
tion as the English language has clung to the purest of 
Anglo-Saxon words it has gained strength throughout 



62 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

the world, while there have gone down before it the real 
British, the Cymeric or Welsh, Erse or Irish, the Gaelic 
of Scotland, and the Manx of the Isle of Man. The Brit- 
ish Keltic is entirely gone, and the rest are only local. 
Besides these, it ousted from the island of Norse the 
Norman French and several other tongues which had 
sought to plant themselves on English soil. 

My illustrious comrade, Prevost Paradol, one of our 
most learned Frenchmen, says: "Neither Russia nor 
united Germany, supposing that they should attain the 
highest fortune, can pretend to impede that current of 
things, nor prevent that solution, relatively near at hand, 
of the long rivalry of European races for the ultimate 
colonization and domination of the universe. The world 
will not be Russian, nor German, nor French, alas! nor 
Spanish. It will be Anglo-Saxon. " 

It was one of Briton's greatest poets who wrote the 
following characteristic lines expressive of the force oi 
languages : 

" Greek's a harp we love to hear, 

Latin is a trumpet clear; 

Spanish, like an organ, swells, 

Italian rings its bridal bells ; 

France, with many a frolic mien, 

Tunes her sprightly violin ; 

Loud the German rolls his drum, 

When Russia's clashing cymbals come 

But Briton's sons may well rejoice, 

For English is the human voice." 
It is a noticeable fact that there have been five hun- 
dred distinct languages, and about three thousand five 
hundred colloquials, or about five thousand different 



LANGUAGE Ox< DIVINE ORIGIN. 63 

forms of speech since Adam's time. At the present time 
five hundred of the primary are dead, so that there are 
about nine hundred now spoken on all the earth, with 
about two thousand five hundred colloquials. 

Canon Farrar says: "We may, therefore, assert, as 
Dante did, more than five centuries ago, 

"That man speaks, is nature's prompting; 
Whether thus or thus she leaves to you 
As you do most affect it." 
I am surprised at some of the heedlessness of your 
philologists, and do not wonder that your children have 
a hard time of it acquiring your language when they are 
so carelessly misdirected in many instances, misled in 
many more and given rules which even the fully de- 
veloped mind of a man is unable to comprehend. It 13 
not from one alone of your linguists that I take this 
definition of the word 'language/' "Language is the 
expression of our ideas by articulate sounds, such as the 
signs of the ideas." Your Noah Webster, who gath- 
ered together all dictionaries extant, including all scien- 
tific words and definitions, and dumped them into his big 
book, gives the definition of the word "language" as 
follows: "The expression of ideas by words or significant 
articulate sounds for the communication of thought." 

Now, if these definitions are correct, and you choose 
to accept them as being so, what becomes of the "lan- 
guage" of the deaf and dumb? 



XIV. 

POWER OP SPEECH IN THE FELINE. 

It is not true that all animals have vocal chords. Some 
are marsupial, such as the kangaroo, and have mem- 
branous vocal chords, which stretch upon themselves and 
so cannot be stretched by the arytenoid muscles. A few 
of them are mammalia, such as the giraffe, the porcupine, 
and the armadillo, have no vocal chords, and are, there- 
fore, mute. This is also the case with the cetacea, the 
loud bellowing of the whale being produced by the ex- 
pulsion of water through the nostrils during the act of 
expiration. Serpents have no vocal chords, and their 
hiss is the result of breathing forcibly down through a 
soft glottis. Frogs have no trachea, so that their larynx 
opens into the bronchial tube, but the loudness of the 
croaking of male frogs is due to the distension of two 
membranous sacs at the side of the neck. Some frogs 
have membranous vocal chords, others two reed-like 
bodies, the anterior ends of which are fixed, while the pos- 
terior ends with the ventricles of the larynx and the 
larynge pharyngeal sacs looking into the bronchi are 
free. 

The vocal organs of both man and the other animals 
present a general resemblance to each other, despite vary- 
ing degrees of development. Cats have a sac between 
the thyroid cartilege and the oshyiodeum, which have 
much to do with the modifying and increasing of the 

64 



POWER OF SPEECH IN THE FELINE. 65 

tones of the voice. The laryngeal sacs are small, and thus 
prevent what might be a shrill cry, such as the deafening 
shrieks of the monkeys of Africa. The epiglottis is com- 
paratively small, and there are proportionately small cav- 
ities in the thyroid cartilege and the oshyiodeum, which 
communicate with the ventricles of the larynx and the 
laryngea-pharyngeal sacs, which give the peculiar softness 
of musical tone to the feline, as may be noted by a 
merely casual observer, and is accounted one of the most 
delightful characteristics of the Cat. 

The brain of the Cat so closely resembles that of 
man as to force the unwilling admission from anatomists 
and physiologists that in form and substance they bear 
so close and striking a similarity that it must be con- 
ceded that they are, to all intents and purposes, the 
same in substance and conformation, and differ only in 
weight and size. It will be seen, from this admission of 
the greatest of physiologists and anatomists, possessed as 
men are of the natural prejudice against all animals, sav- 
ing only man, in the way of his ascendency in every 
respect above all other animals, that, in the proportion of 
weight of brain and under similar circumstances, the 
intelligence of the Cat is equal to that of man. These 
forced admissions must necessarily carry conviction with 
them, so that I shall hope, at no distant day, to hear 
the admission of whati to me is a proven fact, that in the 
ratio of the size of the two brains the Cat is equal 
in intelligence to man under the same existing circum- 
stances. 

The negro of America, brought up in ignorance and 
under servile conditions, a slave, classified as cattle, was 
once considered an inferior order of the human species 



00 PUSSY AND HSR LANGUAGE. 

by some, and by many as a biped, but a long step be- 
neath his now regarded white brother. Time and ex- 
perience developed the fact that the negro was suscep- 
tible of cultivation, and his ebony brain, contained in a 
skull of twice and thrice the thickness of the white 
man's, has been polished to a highi degree, in exceptional 
cases, although I must admit that this polishing has been 
found to be in proportion to the degree of amalgamation 
with other races, particularly that of the white man. 

Anatomists are unanimous in their opinions and 
their experiments show conclusively that the Cat has a 
much finer and more delicate organism than the dog. 
Upon this universal deduction I argue that they are more 
sensitive than the dog, a proposition which meets the 
approval of every naturalist, anatomist and pathologist 
who has ever taken the subject into consideration. In 
fact, it is almost universally conceded that Cats are fully 
as intelligent as dogs, and by many the feline is regarded 
as the superior animal in every respect. 

Prof. William Lindsay, M. D., F. R. S„ F. L, S., Hon, 
Member New Zealand Institute, says in his remarkable 
work, entitled "Mind in the Lower Animals": 'The lower 
animals are subject to the same kinds of bodily diseases 
as affect men They are subject to the same kinds of 
mental disorders, productible by the same causes as in 
man." He asserts that Cats readily comprehend and 
thoroughly understand man's words and the conversa- 
tion of men. The following attributes he ascribes to the 
Cat, namely, "a moral sense in so far as it involves, a, 
honesty; b, sense of duty or trust; c, sense of guilt and 
shame; d, concealment of crime. 

They are self-sacrificing, even to death, understand- 



POWER OF SPOEEC'H IN THE FELINE. 67 

ing man's language, verbal and other, including the read- 
ing of human character and words, the interpretation 01 
facial expressions, use of money and knowledge of its 
power and the principle of barter, buying and selling, 
self-control, appetite, co-operation with man, both in use- 
ful service and in crime, sensitiveness to insult or affront, 
neglect, injustice, punishment and reproof, discovery of 
murderers and murders, lost or stolen property, idea of 
time, tune, number, order, succession of events. On the 
whole the place next to man, as respects both intellect 
and morals, is usually assigned to the dog, a rank which 
is, undoubtedly, due to his intimate association with and 
careful training by man for countless generations, for 
there can be no question as to the hereditary transmis- 
sion and consequent accumulation of the truths, good or 
bad. of education by or in imitation of man. 

"Man ascribes to the Cat spitefulness, selfishness, 
cold cruelty, stealthiness, treachery and attachment to 
place and not to person. The poor Cat has, probably, 
been as much maligned and misunderstood as it has been 
petted. We are told that its apparent affection is only 
'a cupboard love/ and that this is popularly supposed to 
be sufficient to account for its propensity to pilfer eatables 
and drinkables. It is said to be attached to place, not to 
person, to stick to a given house, even when a master or a 
mistress who has heaped kindness upon it has had occa- 
sion to change quarters. Absurd stories are told as to 
its sucking children's breath. To speak of a scandal- 
propagating, sour old maid as 'spiteful as a Cat' is so 
common, and we hear the Cat so frequently accused of 
stealthiness or treachery — of the enjoyment of the tor- 
tures of its victims and of calculating cruelty, and yet 



68 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

Wood tells us, 'instead of being a greedy, selfish animal, 
it is really a very unselfish and generous one, capable of 
great sacrifices. Jesse mentions one that fed a jay twice 
a day with mice. Another Cat always brought and laid 
at her master's feet the mice she had caught, before she 
would eat them; she made use of them as food only when 
they were given back to her by her master. The attach 
ment of the Cat is frequently as great to person as to 
place, such attachment, however, depending usually on 
how far she is understood, sympathized with and kindly 
treated. 

"Cases have been given of Cats following their mas- 
ters from house to house and place to place, accompany- 
ing them on visits to other people's residences as uncon^ 
cerned as a dog. They may be trained to guard and 
defend like a dog." 

This author speaks of the affection of the feline for 
the canine and gives many proofs instancing the feeding 
and nourishing of a sick dog by a Cat, and of Cats and 
dogs living together, in the same kennel, of which there 
have been innumerable instances. Other authors who in- 
dependently -verify these assertions by the relations of 
personal observations are Mockridge, Lubbock, Belt, 
Hogue, Pierre Huber, Francois Huber, Latreille, Nemour, 
Dr. Franklin, Paisley, Boyer, Spaulding, Houzeau, Nich- 
ols, Menauly, Leroy, Burnett, Jebb, Fleming, Ferrier, 
Gillies, Gudden, Czermak, Flourens, Smellie, Marville, J. 
G. Wood and many others. 

Strong proofs in refutation of the ridiculous asser- 
tion that the Cat is a lover of place and not of person 
have been multiplied until their name is legion. Strong- 
est of all these proofs are the verified narratives of most 



POWER OF SPEECH IN THE FELINE. 69 

reliable people and recited in books of authors who are 
above question as to veracity. There is, in fact, no need 
of deceit in this demonstration of the truth in this re- 
gard, for where the intellect is but ordinary, the evidence 
of the eye is conclusive to those who may have wit- 
nessed the action of the maligned animal, and the char- 
acter of the truthful author, whose honesty of purpose 
and freedom from deceit have never been impugned, will 
be taken for all it is worth by all searchers after the 
truth. 

Prof. Wood, the celebrated naturalist, relates a won- 
derful story of a Cat, as follows: 

"A Cat recently exhibited a mysterious intuitive 
power, which equaled if not surpassed any story of its 
kind and narrated. She was the property of a newly 
married couple, who resided toward the north of Scot- 
land, wdiere the country narrows considerably, by reason 
of the deeply cut inlets of the surrounding sea. Their 
cottage was at no great distance from the ocean, and 
there they remained for several months. After a while 
the householders changed their locality and took up their 
residence in a house near the opposite coast. As the in- 
tervening country was so hilly and rugged that 
there would have been much difficulty in transporting the 
household goods, the aid of a ship was called in, and, 
after giving their Cat to a neighbor as a present, the man 
and his wife proceeded by sea to their new home. 

"After they had been settled for some weeks, they 
were surprised by the sudden appearance of their Cat, 
which presented itself at their door, dirty, ragged and 
half starved. As might be expected, she was joyfully 
received, and soon recovered her good looks. 



70 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

"It is hardly possible to conceive whence the animal 
could have obtained her information. Even if the usual 
means of land transport had been taken, it would have 
been most wonderful that the Cat should have been able 
to trace the line of journey. But when, as in the pres- 
ent instance, the human travelers went by water and the 
feline traveler went by land, there seems to be no clue to 
the guiding power which directed the animal in its course 
and brought it safely to the desired goal." 



XV. 

ILLUSTRATIVE STORIES. 

Another story, told by Dr. Wood, is proof of the 
ivilsity of the constantly repeated assertion by many 
naturalists that the Cat is a lover of locality and not of 
persons, and although it seems almost a matter of super- 
fluity to relate it, I will narrate it in order to fix the truth 
beyond contradiction, in the minds of doubters of the 
real fact. 

"Many years ago we changed our residence from one 
part of Oxford to another, and, having been told that 
Cats have no affection except for localities, my parents 
thought that they would not distress their Cat by taking 
her into a house which she would not Lke, and, accord- 
ingly, left 'Nutty' at home. But, after wq had been 
settled down some eight or ten days, Nutty made her 
appearance among us and displayed by every means in 
her power her delight at rejoining her old friends. She 
was terribly emaciated, and had evidently endured great 
hardships, but in a few days her rich tortoise-shell fur 
had sleeked itself down and she had recovered her wonted 
beauty." 

I take the following from "Gleanings in Natural His- 
Yory," by Edward Jesse, F. L. S., London, 1838. It 
demonstrates the love of the feline for persons and the 
society of human beings and her innate desire to protect 
both her master and his property, characteristics which 
have heretofore been attributed alone to the dog an4 

n 



72 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

denied existence in the feline animal. Of the latter trait 
there are thousands of instances which have come under 
the observation of many people, and have been recited 
in the numerous volumes which I have consulted in 
preparing this paper. The story of this old writer is as 
follows : 

"Cats are generally persecuted animals, and are sup- 
posed to show but little attachment to those who are kind 
to them. I have known a Cat, however, to evince great 
uneasiness during the absence of her owner, and it is 
stated that when the Duke of Norfolk was committed to 
the Tower, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a favorite 
Cat made her way into his prison room by getting dow r n 
the chimney. 

"Cats have been known, also, to do their best to pro- 
tect the property of their masters as well as dogs. A man 
who was sentenced to transportation for robbery in- 
formed me, after his conviction, that he and two others 
broke into the house of a gentlemna near Hampton Court. 
While they were in the act of plundering it a large black 
Cat flew at one of the robbers and fixed her claws on 
each side of his face. He added that he never saw any 
man so much frightened in his life. 

"Mr. White, in his 'Natural History of Selborne,' 
states that of all quadrupeds Cats are the least disposed 
toward w^ater, and will not, when they can avoid it, deign 
to wet a foot, much less to plunge into that element. 
The following fact, however, communicated to me by a 
friend who lived several years in Jamaica, will prove 
that, in cases of necessity, they take to water, and is also 
another instance of the attachment of animals to the 
places where they are bred. Being in want of a Cat, one 



ILLUSTRATED STORIES. 73 

was given him which was not full grown. It was put 
into a canvas bag, and a man on horseback brought him a 
distance of five miles from the place where it was bred. 
It had never been removed before. In doing so, he had 
to cross two rivers, one named the Mino, which is about 
eighty feet wide and two and a half feet deep, and run- 
ning strong. The other, called Thomas's River, was 
wider and more rapid, but less deep. Over these rivers 
there were no bridges. The Cat, when it arrived, was shut 
up for some days, and when supposed to be reconciled to 
her new dwelling she was allowed to go about the house. 
The next day, however, she was missing, and was found, 
shortly afterward, at her old abode. 

"We had one cunning old black Cat," says a corre- 
spondent of Dr. Wood, ''whose wisdom was acquired by 
sad experience. In early youth he must have been very 
careless, for at that time he was always getting in the 
way of the men and the wine cases, and frequent were 
the disasters he suffered from coming into collision with 
moving bodies. His ribs had been often fractured, and 
when nature repaired them he must have handed them 
over to the care of her prentice hand, for the work was 
done in a rough and knotty manner. 

"This battered and suffering pussy was, at last, as- 
sisted by a younger hero, who, profiting by the teaching 
of his senior, managed to avoid the scrapes which had 
tortured the one who was self-educated- 

"These two Cats, 'Senior and Junior/ appeared to 
swear — Cats will swear — eternal friendship at first sight. 
An interchange of good offices between them was at once 
established. 'Senior taught 'Junior' to avoid men's feet, 
and wine-cases in motion, and pointed out the favorite 



<4 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

hunting ground, while Junior' offered to his mentor the 
aid of his activity and physical prowess. 'Senior had a 
cultivated epicurean taste for mice, which he was too old 
to catch, and he therefore entered into a solemn league 
and covenant with Junior' to the following effect: It 
was agreed between these two low contracting powers 
that Junior' should devote his energies to catching mice 
for the benefit of 'Senior/ who, in consideration of such 
feudal service, was daily to relinquish his claim to a cer- 
tain allowance of cats' meat, in favor of Junior.' 

"This curious compact was actually and seriously car- 
ried out. It was an amusing and touching spectacle to 
behold young pussy gravely laying at the feet of his elder 
the contents of his gamebag- On the other hand, 
'Senior/ true to his bargain, licked his jaw<s and watched 
Junior' steadily consuming a double share of cats' meat." 

Mr. Bidil w r rites from the Government Museum of 
Madras to " Nature," relating this instance of reasoning 
in a Cat: 

"In 1867 I was absent from Madras for two months, 
and left in my quarters three Cats, one of which was an 
English tabby, a very gentle and affectionate creature. 
During my absence the quarters were occupied by two 
young gentlemen, who delighted in teasing and frighten- 
ing the Cats. About a week before my return the English 
Cat had kittens, which she carefully concealed behind 
bookshelves in the library. On the morning of my re- 
turn I saw the Cat and petted her, as usual, and then left 
the house for about an hour. On returning to dress, I 
found that the kittens were located in a corner of my 
dressing-room, where previous broods had been deposited 
and nursed, fc On questioning the servant how- they came 



ILLUSTRATED STORIES. 75 

there, he at once replied, 'Sir, the old Cat, taking one by 
one in her mouth, brought them here.' In other words, 
the mother had carried them, one by one, in her mouth, 
trom the library to the dressing-room, where they lay 
quite exposed. I do not think I have heard of a more 
remarkable instance of reasoning and affectionate confi- 
dence in an animal, and I need hardly say that the latter 
manifestation gave me great pleasure. The train of rea- 
soning seems to be as follows: 'Now my master has re- 
turned, there is no risk of the kittens being injured by the 
two young savages in the house, so I will take them out 
for my protector to see and admire, and keep them in the 
corner in which all my former pets have been nursed in 
safety.' 

"The attachment of the dog and the Cat is sometimes 
curiously manifested,'' says Prof. Wood, and he con- 
tinues: "In a large metropolitan household there had 
been a change of servants, and the new cook begged, as a 
favor, to be permitted the company of her dog. Per- 
mission was granted, and the dog took up his quarters 
in the kitchen, to the infinite disgust of the Cat, who 
thought her dignity insulted by the introduction of a 
stranger into her special domain. In process of time, 
however, she got over her dislike and the two animals 
became fast friends. At last the cook left and took with 
her the dog. 

''After an absence of some length, she determined on 
paying a visit to her former companions, her dog accom- 
panying her as usual. Pussy was in the room when the 
dog entered, and flew forward to greet him. She then 
ran out of the room and shortly returned, bearing in her 
mouth her own dinner. This she laid before her old 



76 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

friend, and actually stood behind him as he ate the food 
with which she so hospitably entertained him. 

"This anecdote was related to me by the owner of 
the cat, and there can be no reason to doubt it. 

"In a chateau in Xormandy lived a favorite Cat, which 
was plentifully supplied with food, and had grown fat and 
sleek on her luxurious fare. Indeed, so bounteously was 
her plate supplied that she was unable to consume the 
entire amount of provisions laid before her. This super- 
abundance of food seemed to weigh upon her mind, and 
one day, before her dinner time, she set off across the 
fields and paid a visit to a little cottage near the roadside, 
where there lived a lean Cat. The two animals returned 
to the chateau in company, and after the feline hostess 
had eaten as much dinner as she desired she relinquished 
the remainder in favor of her friend. 

'The kind-hearted proprietor of the chateau, seeing 
this curious act of hospitality, increased the daily allow- 
ance of meat and afforded an ample meal for both Cats. 
The improved diet soon exerted its beneficial effect on 
the lean stranger, who speedily became as near comfort- 
ably sleek as her hostess. 

"In this improved state of matters she could not eat 
as much as when she was half starved and ravenous with 
hunger, and so, after the two cats had dined, there was 
still an overplus. In order to avoid waste, and urged by 
the generosity of her feelings, the hospitable Cat set forth 
on another journey, and fetched another lean Cat from a 
village at a league's distance. 

"The owner of the chateau, being desirous to see 
how the matter would end, continued to increase the daily 
allowance, and had, at last, as pensioners of his bounty, 



ILLUSTRATED STORIES. 77 

nearly twenty Cats, which had been brought from various 
houses in the surrounding country. Yet, however raven- 
ous were these daily visitors, none of them touched a 
morsel until their hostess had finished her own dinner. 
My informant heard this narrative from the owner of the 
chateau. 

"In the conduct of this hospitably minded Cat there 
seems to be none of the commercial spirit which actuated 
the two Mincing Lane Cats, but an open-pawed liberality, 
as beseems an aristocratic birth and breeding. The 
creature had evidently a sense of economy as well as a 
spirit of generosity, and blending the two qualities to- 
gether, became the general almoner of the neighboring 
felines. There must have been also great powers of con- 
versation between these various animals, for it is evident 
that they were able to communicate ideas to each other 
2nd to induce their companions to act upon the imparted 
information. 



XVI. 

SUPERIORITY OF THE CAT OVER OTHER QUADRUMINA. 

The recent experiments of Prof. Ferrier, according 
to his own interpretation of the phenomena, tend to 
show that human and animal language are identical — 
that the barking of a dog and the mewing of the Cat are 
equivalents of speech in man, and that the faculty of 
language in man and other animals has virtually the 
same seat in the brain. He describes opening the mouth, 
putting out the tongue and barking, in the dog, mew- 
ing, spitting or hissing, in the Cat, as signs correspond- 
ing to speech. But it needed not the experiments of the 
physiologist or the pathologist, or the scalpel of the anato- 
mist, to tell us that the dog's bark, the cat's mew and the 
horse's neigh, as well as the corresponding vocal ex- 
pressions in other animals, are the analogies of speech or 
speaking in man Language in animals is both natural 
and acquired. In both cases it may be the result of self 
tuition or man's instruction and training. In both cases 
its variety is to be remarked upon, and, just as in man, 
this variety, which involves expressiveness, or the sign 
thereof, is frequently, if not always, in proportion to the 
degree of cultivation or education of the speaker. The 
interpretation of animal language, in its varied forms, is 
of the utmost importance in relation to the discrimina- 
tion of notes. It is known, but with accompanying diffi- 
culties which arise mainly from the following causes or 
source: first, the significance of animal language has 

78 



SUPERIORITY OF THE CAT. 70 

been little studied by man ; second, the wishes or thoughts 
are expressed in an infinite variety of ways, -not only in 
different tribes, genera or species, but, in different indi- 
viduals of the same species and different members of the 
same family and different offspring of the same parent, in 
different ages of the same individual, in the same indi- 
vidual at different times and under different circumstances. 
The mode of expressing the passions is different in differ- 
ent animals. Many of the utterances of animals are such 
distinct imitations of the human voice and other sounds 
as to deceive even man himself- 

I do not credit the Darwinian theory of evolution 
with being in the line of common sense. In this doubt 
of its correctness I think I am joined by the great ma- 
jority of mankind. In some human beings who think 
as I do upon this subject, the wish may be father t3 the 
thought, for a matter of pride, because no man takes kind- 
ly to the assertion that his progenitors were apes and 
baboons, or something akin to these, and this may be 
classified as a very commendable pride in the human 
being. Nor do I believe that the domestic Cat is an 
evolution from the wild-cat, or the puma, or the jaguar, 
or anything of their species. The resemblance has de- 
ceived more than one of the best writers upon the subject, 
as it certainly tends to do. Naturalists are at variance now, 
as they always have been, upon the subject of the true 
origin of the Cat, for while some declare that the do- 
mestic Cat evolves from the wild-cat, others claim, with 
as much sincerity, that the wild-cat comes from the do- 
mestic feline. One author, in proof of such an assertion, 
remarks that the wild-cat h not indigenous to the soil of 
America, and must, therefore, have evolved from a do- 



SO PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

mestic animal, our household pet, as there was no other 
way for the wild animal to get to this country — an argu- 
ment which would scarcely apply to other animals. I 
cannot see the force of such an argument, nor do I bring 
myself to the belief that the beautiful and loving house- 
hold pet is descended from the ferocious and compara- 
tively enormous wild-cat or anything of its species, any 
more than I can believe that the dog is an evolution from 
the lion, the catamount from the tiger, the sprat from the 
whale, or man from the ape. The natural tendency to 
domesticity in the Cat is antagonistic to this theory of 
evolution, as are many other individualities of the feline, 
and I shall, therefore, claim that our Cat is not even a 
distant relative of the wild animal, but is so far removed 
that the comparison is not only odious but incorrect. 

Prof. E. P. Thompson, in his valuable treatise, en- 
titled ''Passions of Animals/' gives to the feline race the 
following characteristics: "Perception, touch, taste, smell, 
hearing, sight, recollection, memory, imagination, 
dreams, playfulness, homesickness, thought, discrimina- 
tion, attention, experience, sense of injustice, computation 
of time, calculation of number, sensation, tone and power 
of sensation, sympathy, joy, pain, anger, astonishment, 
fear, sympathy of suffering, cruelty, desire, fellowship o* 
joy, compassion, appetite, impulse, instinct, self-preserva- 
tion, tenacity of life, temptation, hibernation, form and 
color, distribution, habitation, cleanliness, change of habi- 
tation, locality, postures and use of natural weapons, care 
of young, affection for offspring, imitation, social impulse, 
communication, language, curiosity, sagacity, tempera- 
ment, fo r esight, cunning, artifice, dissimilation, attach- 
ment, fidelity, gratitude, generosity, vanity, love of praise, 



SUPERIORITY OF THE CAT. 81 

jealous}', predominancy, hatred, revenge, love, and train- . 

fog." 

Concerning the almost universal belief that the dog 
is a more intelligent animal than the Cat, while the classi- 
fication of animals, in the order of intellect, by many au- 
thors, gives the first place to the dog, the second to the 
Cat and the third to the horse, I cannot agree with them, 
because the facts are all against such an order of classi- 
fication. I protest against the preferment of the dog to 
the feline for many reasons, not the least of which is the 
established and apparent fact that the construction of the 
Cat is finer than that of the dog. It goes without saying 
that the dog has been given far more and better oppor- 
tunities for learning and refinement than the Cat. The 
dog is the constant companion of man. He goes with 
him everywhere, to his place of business, to his farm, to 
his work of every nature, upon his walks abroad, to the 
enjoyment of his sports, to the tavern, even to the church, 
and, when the day's work and pleasures are over, to his 
home, and frequently to his bed-chamber. The dog is 
with the man, his constant companion, from the cradle to 
the grave, and from his constant companionship come 
the knowledge and intelligence of the canine, developed 
by constant observation of man's habits, mode of expres- 
sion, likes, dislikes, associations and moods. It dust be 
admitted by the most obtuse that the Cat has never been 
given such privilege; consequently, to compare the Cat 
with the dog, in the matter of intelligence, is an apparent 
injustice. Give to the feline the same advantages which 
are bestowed upon the canine, and the superiority of the 
Cat will be. immediately appreciable. Prof. George J. 
Romanes, in his valuable work, "Animal Intelligence/' re- 



S2 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

cently published, says in relation to the injustice done the 
feline animal by naturalists in general: 

'The Cat is, unquestionably, a highly intelligent ani- 
mal, though, when compared with its great domestic 
rival, the dog, its intelligence, from being cast in quite a 
different mold, is very frequently underrated. Compara- 
tively unsocial in, temperament, wanderingly predaceous 
in habits and lacking in the affectionate docility of the 
canine nature, this animal has never, in any considerable 
degree, been subject to those psychologically transform- 
ing influences whereby a prolonged and intimate associa- 
tion with man has, as we shall subsequently see, so pro-k 
foundry modified the psychology of the dog. Neverthe- 1 
less, the Cat is not only by nature, an animal remarkable I 
for intelligence, but, in spite of its naturally imposed dis- jj\ 
advantages of temperament, has not altogether escaped I 
those privileges of nurture which unnumbered centuries 
of domestication could scarcely fail to supply. Thus, as 
contrasted with most of the wild species of the genus 
when tamed from their youngest days, the domestic cat 
is conspicuously less uncertain in its temper toward its 
masters, the uncertainty of temper displayed by nearly all 
the wild members of the feline tribe, when tame, being, of 
course, an expression of the interference of individual 
with hereditary experience." 

The delicacy and carefulness of the Cat were never 
more characteristically illustrated or more gracefully de- 
scribed than by Prof. Philip G. Hamerton, in his inter- 
esting and graphically written "Chapter on Animals/' in 
which he takes occasion to say: 

"One evening, before dinner time, the present writer 
had occasion to go into a dining room where the cloth 



SUPERIORITY OF. THE CAT. 83 

was already laid, the glasses already upon the sideboard 
and table, and the lamp and candles lighted. A Cat, 
which was a favorite in the house,, finding the door ajar, 
entered softly after me, and began to make a little ex- 
ploration after his manner. I have- a fancy for watching 
animals when they think they are not observed, so I 
affected to be entirely absorbed in the occupation which 
detained me there, and took note of the Cat's proceedings 
without in any way interrupting them. The first thing 
he did was to jump upon a chair and thence up on the 
sideboard. There was a good deal of glass and plate 
upon that piece of furniture, but nothing as yet which, in 
the Cat's opinion, was worth purloining, so he brought 
all his paws together on the very edge of the board, the 
two forepaws in the middle, the others on both sides, and 
sat, balancing himself for a minute or two whilst he con- 
templated the long, glittering vista of the table. As yet 
there was not an item of anything eatable upon it, but 
the cat probably thought he might as well ascertain 
whether this were so or not by a closer inspection, for, 
with a single spring, he cleared the abyss, and alighted 
noiselessly on the tablecloth. He walked all over it, and 
left no trace. He passed among the slender glasses, 
fragile stems, like air-bubbles cut in half and balanced 
on spears of ice, yet he disturbed nothing, broke nothing 
anywhere. When his inspection was over he stepped out 
of sight, having been perfectly inaudible from the begin- 
ning, so that a blind person could only have suspected his 
visit by that mysterious sense which makes the blind 
aware of the presence of another creature. 

"This little scene reveals one remarkable character- 
istic of the feline nature, the innate and exquisite refine- 



r 



84 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

ment of its behavior. It would be infinitely difficult, prob- 
ably even impossible, to communicate a delicacy of this 
kind to any animal by teaching. Why should she tread 
so carefully? It is not from fear of offending her mas- 
ter and incurring punishment, because to do so is in con- 
formity with her own idea of behavior, exactly as a lady 
would feel vexed with herself if she broke anything in her 
own drawing-room, though no one would Ll.me her mala- 
dresse, and she would never feel the loss. A dog on vel- 
vet is evidently out of place; he would be as happy in 
clean straw; but a Cat on velvet does not awaken any 
sense of the incongruous. If animals could speak, the dog 
would be a bluff, outspoken, honest fellow, but the Cat 
would have the rare talent of never saying a word too 
much." 



XVII. 

INTELLECTUAL POWER OF THE CAT. 

The immortal Shelley possessed an intense sense of 
the supernatural, and, while being a lover of the feline, 
appeared to be convinced of the fact that Cats have an 
articulate language formed of easily distinguishable words, 
purely Anglo-Saxon. The following soy, demonst ative 
of these facts, may be discounted by some of the more in- 
credulous, but it must be remembered that Shelley was 
renowned for his veracity, and is, therefore, entitled to 
credence. He relates the following narrative as he heard 
it from Mr. G. Lewis: 

"A gentleman on a visit to a friend," says he, 'who 
lives on the skirts of an extensive forest, on the east of 
Germany, lost his way. He wandered for some hours 
among the trees, when he saw a light at a distance. On 
approaching it he was surprised to observe that it pro- 
ceeded from the interior of a ruined monastery. Before 
he knocked, he thought it prudent to look through the 
window. He saw a multitude of Cats assembled around 
a small grave, four of whom were letting down a coffin 
with a crown upon it. The gentleman, startled at this 
unusal sight, and imagining that he had arrived among 
the retreat of fiends or witches, mounted his horse and 
rode away with the utmost precipitation. He arrived at 
a late hour at his friend's house, who had sat up for him. 
On his arrival his friend questioned him as to the cause 
of the traces of trouble visible in his face. He began to 

. 85 



86 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

recount his adventure after much difficulty, knowing that 
it was scarcely possible that his friend should give faith 
to his relation. No sooner had he mentioned the coffin, 
with the crown upon it, than his friend's Cat, who seemed 
to have been lying asleep before the fire, leaped up, say- 
ing, 'Then, I am the King of the Cats!' and, scrambling 
up the chimney, was seen no more." 

Prof. Hamerton, in quoting the above, comments 
upon the story as follows : 

"Now, is not that a remarkable story, proving at the 
same time, the attention Cats pay to human conversation 
even when they outwardly seem perfectly indifferent to it, 
and the monarchical character of their political organiza- 
tion, which, without this incident, might have remained 
forever unknown to us? This happened, we are told, in 
Eastern Germany, but in our own island, England, less 
than a hundred years ago, there remained many a Cat, it 
is said, fit to be the ministrant of a sorceress." 

Concerning the origin of the domestic Cat, Rev. 
J. G. Wood in his "Illustrated Natural History," says: 
"The Egyptian Cat is the origin of the domestic Cat. It 
is conjectured that the domestic Cat was imported from 
Egypt into Greece and Rome, and from thence to Eng- 
land." 

"The Cat," continues Dr. Wood, "is a sadly calumni- 
ated creature. The Cats with which I have been most famil- 
iar have been as docile, tractable and good-tempered as. 
any dog could be, and displayed an amount of intellectual 
power which would be equaled by very few dogs and 
surpassed by none. The most conspicuous varieties of 
the domestic Cat are the Manx and Angora. Angora 
Cats have long, silky hair and bushy tails, while the Manx 



INTELLECTUAL, POWER OF THE OAT. S7 

Cat's body is covered with close fur, and is tailless." 

Dr. Wood, in his most interesting work, relates sev- 
eral stories confirmatory of the fact that the Cat is won- 
derfully endowed with intellectuality, and I select the fol- 
lowing" as being the most pleasing: 

'Three years ago I had a lovely kitten presented to 
me. Her fur was of beautiful blue-gray, marked with 
glossy, black stripes, according to the most improved 
zebra or tiger fashion. She was so very pretty that she 
was named Tret,' and was, without exception, the wisest 
most loving and dainty pussy that ever crossed my path. 
When Pret was very young, I fell ill with a nervous fever. 
She missed me immediately in my accustomed place, 
sought for me, and placed herself at my door until she 
found a chance for getting into the room, which she soon 
accomplished, and began at once to try her little best to 
amuse me w r ith her little frisky, kitten tricks and pussy-cat 
attentions. But soon finding that I was too ill to play 
with her, she placed herself beside me, and at once estab- 
lished herself as head nurse. In this capacity few human 
beings could have exceeded her in watchfulness, or mani- 
fested more affectionate regard. It was truly wonderful 
to note how soon she learned to know the different hours 
at which I ought to take medicine or nourishment, and, 
during the night, if my attendant was asleep, she would 
call her, and if she could not awake her without such 
extreme measures, she would gently nibble the nose of the 
sleeper, which never failed to produce the desired effect. 

"Having thus achieved her purpose, Miss Pret would 
watch attentively the preparation of whatever was needed, 
and then come and, with a gentle purr annonuce its ad- 
vent to me. The most marvelous part of the matter was 



88 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

her never being five minutes wrong in her calculation of 
the true time, even amid the stillness and darkness of 
the night. But who shall say by what means this little 
being was enabled to measure the fleeting moments, and 
by the aid of what power did she connect the lapse of 
time with the needful attentions of a nurse and her charge? 
Surely we have here something more than reason." 

The reverend gentleman goes on to say: 'The never- 
failing accuracy of this w 7 ise little cat w 7 as the more sur- 
prising since she was equally infallible by day or night. 
There was no striking clock in the house, so that she 
could not have been assisted by its aid, nor was it habit, 
for her assiduous attentions only began with the illness 
and ceased with the recovery of the invalid. Instinct, 
popularly so called, will not account for this wonderful 
capability so suddenly coming into being, and so sudden- 
ly ceasing. Surely some spirit-guiding power must have 
animated this simple little creature, and have directed her 
in her labor of love. 

"Another time, while Pret was yet in her kittenhood, 
another kitten lived in the same house, and very much 
annoyed Pret by coming into the room and eating the 
meat which had been laid out for herself. However, Pret 
soon got over that difficulty by going to the plate and, as 
soon as it was placed in the accustomed spot, picking out 
all the large pieces of meat and hiding them under a 
table. She then sat quietly down, and placed herself 
sentry over the hidden treasure, while the intruding Cat 
entered the room, walked up to the plate and finished the 
little scraps of meat that Pret had thought fit to leave her. 
After the obnoxiouas individual had left the room, Pret 
brought her concealed treasures from their hiding place 
and quietly consumed them. 



INTELLECTUAL POWER OP THE CAT. 89 

"When any one was writing Pret was rather apt to 
disconcert the writer. She always must needs try her 
skill at anything that her mistress did, and no sooner was 
the pen in motion than Pret would jump on the table, 
and, seizing the end of the pen in her mouth, try to direct 
its movements in her own way. That plan not answering 
her expectations, she would pat the fresh writing paper 
with her paw, and make sad havoc with the correspond- 
ence. 

"Clever as Pret was, she sometimes displayed an un- 
expected simplicity of character. After the fashion of the 
cat tribe, she delighted in covering up the remnants of 
her food with any substance that seemed most convenient. 
She was accustomed, after taking her meals, to fetch a 
piece of paper and lay it over the saucer, or to put her 
paw into her mistress' pocket and extract her handker- 
chief for the sdme ptHpose. These little performances 
showed some depth of reasoning in the creature, but she 
would sometimes act in a manner totally opposed to ra- 
tional action. Paper and handkerchiefs failing, she has 
been often seen, after partly finishing her meal, to fetch 
one of her kittens and lay it over the plate, for the pur- 
pose of covering up the remaining food. When kitten, 
paper and handkerchief were all wanting, she did her best 
to scratch up the carpet, and to lay the torn fragments 
upon the plate. She had been known, in her anxiety, to 
find covering for the superabundant food, to drag a table- 
cloth from its proper locality, and to cause a sad de- 
molition of the superincumbent fragile ware. 

"At last Pret died, and one of her offspring became 
a mother, and I conveyed herself and kitten to her 
former home. Although she had not seen the house 
since her early kittenhood, she recognized the locality at 



90 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

once, and, pulling her kitten out of its basket, established 
it in her accustomed bed on the sofa. 

"One of her offspring is now domiciled in my own 
house, and there was rather a quaint incident in connec- 
tion with its departure. 

"Minnie knew perfectly well that her kitten was 
going- away from her, and, after it had been placed in a 
little basket, she licked it affectionately, and seemed to 
take a formal farewell of her child. When next I visited 
the house Minnie would have nothing to do with me, 
and when her mistress greeted me, she laid her face 
in her mistress' arms. So I remonstrated with her, tell- 
ing her that her little one would be better off with me 
than if it had gone to a stranger, but all to no purpose. 
At last I said, 'Minnie, I apologize, and will not so offend 
again.' 

"At this remark Minnie lifted up her head, looked me 
straight in the face, and voluntarily came on my knee. 
Anything more humanly appreciative could not be imag- 
ined. 

"For many days after the abstraction of her off- 
spring, Minnie would not approach the various spots 
sanctified by the presence of her lost child, and would not 
even repose on a certain shawl, knitted from scarlet wool, 
which was her favorite resting-place. She is a compas- 
sionate pussy, like her late mother, a::d mightily distressed 
at any illness that falls on any of the household. When 
her mistress has been suffering from a severe cough, I 
have seen Minnie jump up on the sofa and put her paw 
sympathetically on the lips of the sufferer. Sneezing 
seems to excite her compassion even more than coughing, 
and causes her to display even a greater amount of sym- 
pathy." 



XVIII. 

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CAT. 

One strong characteristic attributed to the Cat by its 
enemies and traducers is quarrelsomeness. I will not take 
the trouble to deny the assertion, but leave the reader t j 
deny it out of his own experience, and will give two ver- 
sions of the old story of the Kilkenny Cats, so frequently 
quoted in demonstration of the fighting qualities of Pussy, 
who is, evidently, only too eager to live in peace with all 
the world, in conformity with her great desire for com- 
fort. 

The story generally told is that two felines fought in 
a saw-pit with such ferocious determination that, when 
the battle was over, nothing could be found remaining of 
either combatant except the tail, the marvelous inference 
to be drawn therefrom being, of course, that they had 
devoured each other. 

The ludicrous anecdote has, no doubt, been generally 
looked upon as an absurdity of the Joe Miller class — 
but this, according to a writer in the English "Notes and 
Queries," is all a mistake. He continues, concerning the 
historical matter of the Kilkenny Cats, "I have not the 
least doubt that the story of the mutual destruction of 
the contending cats was an allegory designed to typify the 
utter ruin to which centuries of litigation and embroil- 
ment on the subject of conflicting rights and privileges 
tended to reduce the respective exchequers of the rival 
municipal bodies of Kilkenny and IrLh.own — separate 

91 



92 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

corporations, existing within the limits of one city, and 
the boundaries of whose respective jurisdictions had never 
been marked out or defined by any authority to which 
either was willing to bow. Their struggle for precedence 
and for the maintenance of alleged rights invaded com- 
menced A. D. 1377, and were carried on with truly feline 
fierceness and implacability until the end of the seven- 
teenth century, when it may be fairly considered that 
they had mutually devoured each other, to the very tail, 
as we find their property all mortgaged, and see them each 
passing by-laws that their respective officers should be con- 
tent with the dignity of their stations and forego all salary 
until the suit at law with the other pretended corporation 
should be terminated, and the incumbrances thereby 
caused removed with the vanquishment of the enemy/' 

Those who have taken the story of the Kilkenny Cats 
in its literal sense have done grievous injustice to the 
character of the grimalkins of the "fair critic," who are 
really quite as demure and quietly disposed a race of tab- 
bies as it is in the nature of any animal to be. The other 
story, which, to my mind seems mere probable than the 
one just recited, is given by my friend, Mr. S. Clark Gould, 
in his "Notes and Queries," as follows: 

"During the rebellion which occurred in Ireland, in 
1798, or, it may be, in 1803, Kilkenny was garrisoned by 
a troop of Hessian soldiers, who amused themselves in 
barracks by tying two cats together by their tails and 
throwing them across a clothes-line to fight. One of the 
officers, hearing of this cruel practice, resolved to stop it. 
As he entered the room, one of the troopers seized a 
sword, cut the tails in two as the animals hung across 
the line, and thus suffered the two cats to escape, minus 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CAT. 93 

their tails, through the open window, and when the officer 
inquired the meaning of the two bleeding tails being left 
in the room, he was coolly told that two cats had been 
fighting, and had devoured each other, all but the tails." 

Before Noah Webster asserted that ''the lower ani- 
mals" only possessed instinct, which he defined as a power 
"or disposition of mind, by which, independent of all in- 
struction or experience, without deliberation, and without 
having any end in view, animals are unerringly directed to 
do spontaneously whatever is necessary for the preserva- 
tion of the individual or the continuation of the kind,'' 
he should have read the following authenticated stories, 
illustrative of the forethought of the Cat. The first of 
these I take from an English magazine, called "Nature." 
and it is communicated by Dr. J. R. Frost. 

"Our servants have been accustomed, during the 
late frost, to throw crumbs from the breakfast table to 
tne birds, and I have, several times, noticed that our cat 
used to wait there in ambush, in the expectation of a 
hearty meal from o. e or two of the assembled birds. 
Xow, so far, this circumstance is not an example of ab- 
stract reasoning, but to continue. For tie *ast few days 
this practice of feeding the birds has been kft off. The 
cat, however, with an almost incredible amount of fore- 
thought, was observed by myself, together with two other 
members of my household, to scatter crumbs on the grass 
with the obvious intention of enticing the birds." 

Another correspondent writes to the same maga- 
zine as follows: 

"A case somewhat similar to that mentioned by Dr. 
Frost, of a Cat scattering crumbs, occurred within my 
own knowledge in a neighbors yard. During the recent 



94 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

severe winter a friend was in the habit of throwing crumbs 
outside his bedroom window. The family have a fine, 
black Cat, which, seeing- that the crumbs brought birds, 
would occasionally hide himself behind some shrubs, and 
when the birds came to their breakfast would pounce 
upon them with varying success. The crumbs had been 
thrown out as usual one afternoon, but left untouched, 
and during- the night a slight fall of snow occurred. On 
looking out next morning, my friend observed puss busily 
engaged in scratching away the snow. Curious to learn 
what she sought, he waited, and saw her take the crumbs 
up from the cleared space and lay them, one by one, on 
the snow. After doing this she retired behind the shrubs 
to await further developments. This w T as repeated en 
two occasions." 

In further proof of the fact that Pussy possesses a 
wonderful power of forethought, Prof. Romanes tells this 
story as coming from a correspondent : 

"While a paraffine lamp was being filled, some of the 
oil fell upon the back of our Cat, and was afterward 
ignited by a cinder falling upon it from the fire. The 
Cat, with her back in a blaze, in an instant made for the 
door, which happened to be open, and sped up the street 
about a hundred yards, where she plunged into the vil- 
lage watering-trough, and extinguished the blaze. The 
trough had eight or nine inches of water, and Puss was 
in the habit of seeing the fire put out with water every 
night. The latter point is important, as it shows the 
data of observation on which the animal reasoned." 

Another correspondent, after describing ai Cat and 
parrot in their amiable relationship, proceeds to the fol- 
lowing narration: 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CAT. 95 

"One evening - there was no one in the kitchen. Cook 
had gone up-stairs and left a bowl of dough to raise by 
the fire. Shortly after the Cat rushed up after her, mew- 
ing and making what signs she could for her to go down- 
stairs, when she jumped up and seized her apron and 
and tried to drag- her down. As she was in such a state 
of excitement, cook went and found Polly shrieking*, call- 
ing out, flapping her wings and struggling violently, up 
to her knees in dough and stuck quite fast. 

"No doubt if she had not been rescued she would 
have sunk in the morass and been smothered." 

Mr. Belshaw, writing to "Nature," says: "I was sit- 
ting in one of the rooms of a friend's house the first 
evening there, and on hearing a loud knock at the front 
door, was told not to heed it, as it was only the kitten ask- 
ing for admission. Not believing it, I watched for my- 
self, and very soon saw the kitten jump onto the door, 
hang on by one leg, and with the other forepaw right 
through the knocker, rap twice." 

As being of general interest, I take the following ex- 
planation of the common theory that the Cat has nine 
lives, from "Zoological Recreations," by William J. 
Broderip, F. R. S. : 

"The expostulating tabby in 'Gay's Fables' says to 
the old beldame: 

Tis infamy to serve a hag, 
Cats are thought imps, her broom a nag; 
And boys against our lives combine, 
Because, 'tis said, your cats have nine. 

"The Cat probably owes this reputation to a nine- 
fold vitality, not only to its extraordinary endurance of 
violence and its recovery from injury, which frequently 



06 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

leaves it for dead, but also to the belief that a witch was 
empowered to take on her a Cat's body nine times." 

In demonstrating the finer sensibilities of the feline 
race, Prof. Wood says: 

"Some Cats appear to nave a strong sense of honor, 
and will resist almost every temptation when they are 
placed in a position of trust. Still, some temptations ap- 
pear so powerful that the honorable feelings cannot re- 
sist them. For example, one Cat would resist every lure, 
except a piece of fried sole, another could never with- 
stand the allurements of a little jug of milk or bottled 
stout. She would have boldly averted her head from the 
same liquids if they were placed in a basin or saucer, but 
the little jug, in which she could just dip her paw, and 
lick it possessed irresistible fascination for her. And as 
other examples, I have known several cats who possessed 
a strong taste for fermented liquors, and I have seen one 
of these creatures eat a piece of bread, soaked in pure 
brandy, and beg earnestly for a further supply. ' 



XIX. 

GENEROSITY, CUNNING AND CAMARADERIE. 

Possibly there is no better way for an author to illus- 
trate his subject or punctuate an argument than by quot- 
ing the most interesting and conclusive stories which are 
directly to the point. I have done so and will continue 
to do so in this chapter, hoping that the stories narrated 
will not only be of interest, but impressive and conclu- 
sive. 

From "Petland," by Rev. J. G Wood, I take the fol- 
lowing story, which is illustrative of the generosity and 
self-sacrifice of the feline animal. It is a relation about 
"Pret," the grandson of the original of that name, of 
whom the reverend gentleman had something to say in 
a previous chapter: 

"He was fond of entertaining his friends in the yard, 
and was in the habit of bringing dinner to the club for the 
benefit of his acquaintances, and then wanting a second 
dinner on his own account, in the evening. He even 
went so far as to be disgusted with the meals furnished 
to a neighboring cat, thinking that cat's-meat was not 
fit for feline consumption. Acting upon this supposition, 
he was seen to take away the cats'-meat as soon as it was 
brought by the itinerant purveyor, to carry it into the 
cellar, bury it under a heap of coals, and to take his own 
dinner upstairs for his friends." 

The imitative power of Pussy has never been illus- 
trated with more force than in the story which I take 
from the work by Prof. George J. Romanes, and which 
occurred, as he states, under his personal observation. 

97 



98 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

4 'For myself, I may say tnat my own coachman onCe 
had a Cat which, certainly without tuition, learned to open 
a door that led into the stables from a yard, into which 
looked some of the windows of my house. Standing- at 
these windows when the Cat did not see me, I have many 
times witnessed her modus operandi. Walking up to the 
door, with a most matter-of-course kind of air, she used 
to spring at the half-hoop handle, just below the thumb- 
latch. Holding on to the bottom of this half-hoop with 
one forepaw, she then raised the other to the thumb- 
piece, and while depressing the latter, finally, with her 
hind legs, scratched and pushed the doorpost so as to 
open the door. Precisely similar cases have been de- 
scribed by my correspondents as having been witnessed 
by them." 

It may be interesting to the reader to know that Prof. 
Darwin, in his great treatise upon animals, declares that 
Cats with blue eyes are invariably deaf. My experience 
has not proven this assertion, and, if it is as true as 
other assertions, in "The Origin of Species," for instance, 
the eve lution of man from the ape, I think the reader has 
just cause for doubt. 

Sir Richard Phillips says in "Million of Facts/' Ameri- 
can edition, page 48 : 'The Angora Cat has one eye blue 
and the other yellow." Also, on page 49: "Perfectly 
white Cats are deaf." 

Regarding this last assertion, I will say I once owned 
a "perfectly ('White Cat, which was a Tom, weighing 
twenty-five pounds, who was not deaf, and I cannot com- 
prehend any just reason why a white Cat should be deaf, 
or what the color of the fur has to do with the ear or her 
hearing 



GENEROSITY AND CUNNING. 99 

The statement has been made in the works of several 
writers upon animals and their habits that dogs and Cat s 
would never fraternize. I have not a doubt that the ex- 
perience of most of my readers will s:rve to demonstrate 
the contrary, as my own experience undoubtedly does. 

Illustrative of the superior intelligence of the Cat, 
Prof. Romanes gives the following stories: 

"Airs. Hubbard tells me of a Cat she possessed that 
was in the habit of poaching young rabbits, to 'eat pri- 
vately in the seclusion of a disused pig-sty/ One day 
this Cat caught a small black rabbit, and, instead of eating 
it, as she always did the brown ones, brought it into the 
house, unhurt, and laid it at the feet of her mistress. 
'She clearly recognized the black rabbit as an unusual 
specimen and apparently thought it right to show it 
to her mistress/ Such was not the only instance this Cat 
showed of zoological discrimination, for on another oc- 
casion, having caught another unusual animal, viz., a 
stoat, she also brought this, alive, into the house, for the 
purpose of exhibiting it." 

Mr. T. B. Groves tells, in "Nature," of a Cat which, on 
first seeing his own reflection in the mirror, tried to fight 
it. Meeting with resistance from the glass, the Cat next 
ran behind the mirror. Not finding the object of his 
search, he again came to the front, and while keeping 
his eyes deliberately fixed upon the image, felt round the 
edge of the glass with one paw, whilst with his head 
twisted around to the front he assured himself of the 
persistence of the reflection. He never afterwards conde- 
scended to notice the mirror. 

A wonderful faculty of the Cat is her quick perception 
of the uses of mechanical appliances. In corroboration 
of this assertion, I introduce the following stories: 



100 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

Couch, in his "Illustrations of Instinct/' page 196, 
gives a case within his own knowledge, of a Cat which, 
in order to get some milk which was kept in a locked 
cupboard, used to unlock the door by seating herself on 
an adjoining table and "repeatedly patting on the bow of 
the key with her paw, when, with a slight push on the 
door, she was able to open it. The lock was old and the 
key turned in it on a very slight impulse.'' 

As a still further instance of the Cat's high apprecia- 
tion of mechanical appliances, I give an extract from a 
paper by Mr. Otto, which will have been read at the 
Linnean Society, before this paper is published. 

"At Peara, the residence of Parker Bowan, Esq., a full- 
grown Cat was one day accidentally locked up in a room, 
without any other outlet than a small window moved on 
hinges, and kept shut up by means of a swivel. Xot long 
afterwards the window was found open and the Cat gone. 
This having happened several times, it was, at last, found 
that the Cat jumped upon the window 7 sill, placed her 
forepaws as high as she could reach against the side, de- 
liberately reached with one over to the swivel, moved it 
from its horizontal to a perpendicular position, and then, 
leaning with her whole weight against the window, es- 
caped." 

Illustrative of the camaraderie of the Cat with human 
beings, and of the fact that she can, and frequently does, 
overcome her natural antipathy to water, Prof. Romanes 
tells the following interesting tale : 

"A fisherman, of Portsmouth, England, called Robin- 
son Crusoe, 7 made famous by Mr. Buckland, had a cat 
called 'Puddles,' which overcame the horror of water, 
characteristic of his race, and employed his piscatorial 



GENEROSITY AND CUNNING. 101 

talent in the service of his master, who said of himT 'He 
was the wonderfulest water Cat as ever came out of Ports- 
mouth Harbor, was Puddles, and he used to go out a- 
fishm' with me every night. On cold nights he would sit 
on my lap while I was a-fishin', and poke his head out 
every now and then, or else I would wrap him up in a 
sail, and make him lay quiet. He'd lay down on me 
while I was asleep, and if anybody come, he'd swear a 
good un, and have the face off on 'em if they went to 
touch me, and he'd never touch a fish, not even a little 
teeny pout, if you didn't give it to 'im. I was obliged to 
take him out a-fishiir or else he'd stand an' yowl anil marr 
till I w^ent back and ketched him by the poll and shied 
hirn into the boat, and then he was quite happy. When 
it was fine he used to stick up at the bow r of the boat and 
sit a-watchin' the dogs," meaning dog-fish. "The dogs 
used to come along by the thousands at a time, and when 
they was thick all about, he would dive in and fetch'em 
out, jammed in his mouth as fast as may be, just as if 
they was a parcel of rats, and he didn't tremble with the 
cold half as much as a Newfoundland dog who was used 
to it. ' Pie looked terrible wild about the head when he 
came out of the water with a dog-fish. I larnt him the 
water myself. One day, when he was a kitten, I took 
him down to the sea to wash and brush the fleas out o'i 
him, and in a week he could swim after a feather or a 
cork." 



XX. 

VOWELS AND LIQUIDS PREDOMINATE. 

In the foregoing chapters, I have quoted largely from 
the best anatomists, physiologists, naturalists, patholo- 
gists, philologists and linguists, in support of my th?ses, 
the most important of which are: 

First — That the Cat is of a more delicate organism 
than the dog and, therefore, more susceptible of refine- 
ment and everything that goes toward making it a su- 
perior animal. 

Second — That it possesses a higher order of intelli- 
gence than any other of the quadrumina, and, conse- 
quently, more brain-power equal to that of man. in the 
ratio of its size. 

Third — That with the same advantages or as:ociation 
with man and equal advantages of time and opportunity, 
the Cat will prove herself possessed of all the attributes 
which have been so much admired in the dog, besides 
the many admirable personalities accorded to her, and dis- 
prove the faults which have been ascribed to the feline 
by a prejudiced people. 

If the reader will admit my arguments to be good 
enough to prove my theses, it will go a long way toward 
the admission of my theories concerning the language of 
the Cat, which my investigations have proven to me to 
be not only a possibility, but a fact beyond dispute. I 
have been thus particular in the foregoing chapters, in 
order to lay a foundation fpr what follow5 concerning 

10? 



VOWELS AND LIQUIDS PREDOMINATE. 103 

the interpretation of a sign and word language, given to 
the Cat as language was given to man by his Maker. 
The possibility of the cultivation of such a language is 
an important point in my argument, and I give, in sup- 
port thereof, no less, as there cannot be any greater, au- 
thority in the English language than Prof. A. H. Sayce, 
the eminent philologist, who, in his "Introduction to the 
Science of Language," remarks: "We must be careful 
to remember that language includes every kind of in- 
strumentality whereby we communicate our thoughts and 
feelings to others, and that the deaf mute who can com- 
municate only with the fingers and lips is as truly gifted 
with the power of speech as the man who can articulate 
his words. The latter has a more perfect instrument at 
his command, but that is all. Indeed, it is quite p:s ibh 
to conceive of a community in which all communications 
were carried on by means of the hands alone. To this 
day the savage tribes makes large use of gestures, and we 
are told that the Grevos, of Africa, admirably imitate the 
persons and tenses of the verbs by this means only. 

In the word part of the language of the Cat there are, 
probably, not more than six hundred fundamental words, 
all others being derivatives. Consonants are daintily 
used, while a wide berth is given to explosives and the 
liquid letters "1" and "r" enter into the great majority of 
sounds. The sounds of the labials are not frequently 
heard, but the vowels, a, e, i, o and u, go far toward 
making up the entire complement of words in the lan- 
guage of the Cat. 

I say that there are not, probably, more than six hun- 
dred primitive words, because I have not, after years of 
search, discovered more than that number, and am of th§ 



104 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

opinion that the spoken words will not number more. 
The difficulty of fixing the number of spoken words may 
be realized from the fact that the signs are so universally 
used, to the neglect of the sounds, that the opportunity 
afforded to catch ihe sound and interpret the meaning is 
rare. In short, while the words do exist, they are never 
used excepting when actual necessity requires their use. 
Signs are not only more comprehensive than sounds, 
but the meaning is conveyed more quickly and with 
greater ease emphasized. Sounds are used chiefly to 
attract attention where signs would fail. Therefore, 
signs are used to the exclusion of sounds, whenever they 
will answer the purpose. 

The Chinese language is more nearly like the Cat lan- 
guage than any of the existing languages, and so closely 
resembles it in very many respects as to almost persuade 
me that the language of the Cat was derived from it. It 
is a wonderful thing, and well worth our attention, that 
no people are more fond of the feline than the Chinese, 
who utilize the little animal to a greater extent than peo- 
ple in any other part of the world. It is not a fact gen- 
erally known, but it is a fact that reveals itself to all for- 
eigners who visit the Celestial Empire, all of whom 
assure us of its truth, that the Chinese use the Cat to tell 
the time of day. This they are enabled to do by a close 
observation of the contraction and elongation of the 
pupil of the eye. It is said to be an unerring sign and 
always answers the purpose of correctly indicating the 
hour and part of an hour w'here a clock is not at hand, or 
may be too costly an article of household furnishing for 
the poorer classes among the moon-eyed creatures of the 
Orient 



VOWELS AND LIQUIDS PREDOMINATE. 105 

In the Chinese language there are few word-, and like 
the Chinese, the sounds uttered in the Cat language are 
musical tones, mellifluous and pleasing to the senses. 
Like the Chinese, too, the words have various meanings, 
according to the inflections of the voice. The resem- 
blance in the use and disuse of certain letters, is signfi- 
cant, and never more so than in the constant infusion 
of the vowels. Take, for instance, the word "mieotiw," so 
frequently heard, uttered by the feline, and meaning, liter- 
ally, "here," and we find in it a word of five letter's, three 
absolute and one "possible" vowels. 

Give attention, for a moment, to the word "purrieu," 
which is a note af satisfaction and content, and give at- 
tention to the number of vowels and the Frenchman's 
roll of the liquid "r," so that it comes to the ear like "pur- 
r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rieu," with a gradually ascending inflection. 
In plain English, it means ''happy," or, more compre- 
hensively, perhaps, "all is quiet along the Potomac," and 
"I am as happy as a clam at high water/' expressions 
whose weight and importance were better understood by 
the soldiers of the army of the Potomac, after the Battle of 
Bull Run, and by lovers of the crustacean, than by ordi- 
nary people. 

A matronly Cat will always use the last-mentioned 
word in calling together her famliy under ordinary circum- 
stances, and continue it while caressing them, frequently 
merging it into a song much lower and sweeter to the 
sense than the lullaby we all have heard from the lips of 
the gentle mother while nestled tenderly upon her heart. 
The meaning of this word is never so well understood by 
kittens as when uttered in a sharp tone and repeated a 
number of times more as an explosive than otherwise, for 



106 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. / 

it is a warning of danger and a call for instant action 
from the mother-Cat, who is imperrious in her demands 
for obedience, which is the first law in her famliy life. 

The sounds of the lab:als, b, f, m, p, v, w and y, are 
more frequently heard in words of anger han otherwie, as, 
for instance, in the significant war-cry and notes of de- 
fiance, out on the woodshed, in the hours of the night 
when fair Luna is enthroned in the peaceful sky, in con- 
tradistinction to the batttle-field in the back yard. This 
may be w r ritten "mie-ouw, vow, wow teiow yow tiow, wow 
vow, ts-s-s-s-syow!" ending in an explosion. The signifi- 
cation is both a defiance and a curse, and comes so near 
to bold, bad swearing that I hesitate to put in w r ords the 
English of it. The word "yow," means extermination 
from the face of :he earth, and when the common word 
"mieouw" is used with strong emphasis upon the first 
syllable, it means "beware!" for the fur is about to fly. 



XXL 

CAT WORDS IN COMMON USE. 

The disposition of the Cat to mouth her words has 
given the impression to many who have studied her utter- 
ances to conclude that most, if not all of her words begin 
with the sound of the letter "m," and this is an error which 
cost me months of wasted iLne while seeking to evolve 
the Cat language. It is natural for a Cat, as w r ell as a 
necessary precaution in every animal, including man, to 
keep the mouth closed and breathe only through the 
nostrils, excepting while in the act of eating, drinking or 
speaking. It will be noticed that when the mouth is open 
the sound that comes most naturally and readily is that 
of the letter "m." The deception originated in this fact. 
I will admit a tendency of the feline to anticipate the word 
with this sound, but to suppose that every word of the Cat 
language commences with that sound is erroneous. The 
plaintive cry for food, "aelio," was, for a long time, set 
down by me with the letter "m" preceding it, and it was 
not until I had appreciated the uselessness of that letter 
preceding the word i4 lae,'' meaning "milk," that I disre- 
garded the letter "m," and arrived at the true spelling ot 
these and many other words which were uttered singly 
or at the beginning of a sentence. The word "alieeo," 
meaning "water," is subject to the same misspelling, there 
being no "m" at the beginning of it, but the word uttered 
at the door, when the Cat wants it opened, "parrierre/' 

107 



108 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

meaning "open/' is never preceded with the labial, as it 
could not be pronounced in company with the letter "p." 

The utterance of the word "bl" may have been noticed 
by an observer when the mother-Cat has brought a mouse 
to her kitten. I have given as close a resemblance to the 
sound as possible, in the English language, and it signi- 
fies "meat," and not "mouse," as one might be led to sup- 
pose, "ptleo-bl," meaning "mouse-meat," and "bleeme-bl," 
cooked meat. 

The word "pad" means "foot," and "leo" signifies 
"head." "Pro" is the feline for 'nail or claw," and "tut" 
for "limb," while the body is called "papoo v and the fur 
"oolie." 

The most surprising characteristic of the Cat is, un- 
doubtedly, her wonderful appreciation of the passage of 
time and the invariable correctness with which the feline 
notes the hour and even the minutes after the hour, without 
the aid of, or even appearing to comprehend the value of 
a clock in computing time. This wonderful gift was one 
of the first of my discoveries, as it was one of the most in- 
teresting rewards for my labors. Appreciating that the 
Cat must have recourse to sounds for the expression of 
the hours in their conversation, I applied myself to the 
study of them, and was astonished at the rapidity with 
which I acquired the Cat-words standing for numbers. In 
this labor I was materially aided by my knowledge of the 
tendency of the feline to gesticulate, and when a number 
was spoken I noticed, regarding the lowest of them, that 
the Cat would significantly pat her foot, say once for one 
twice for two and so on, even to seven times occasionally. 
The highest numbers were not difficult of attainment by 
the Cat language, because of the lack of gesticulations 



CAT WORDS IN COMMON USE. 



109 



comprehensive of the quantity. By other signs I arrived at 
a correct conclusion and became as perfect in the words 
and their meanings as 1 the Cat herself. I was greatly re- 
joiced at this easy victory, and regarded it as a good omen 
of success in my more difficult undertaking of acquiring 
the full language, not anticipating the years of toil, whose 
arduousness, however, was lightened, at long intervals, by 
success. The numbers, correct beyond doubt, are as fol- 
lows : 



I. 


— Aim. 


24 


— Kile-su. 


47 


— Sule-el. 


2. 


— Ki. 


25 


— Kile-im. 


48 


— Sule-ic. 


3- 


— Zah. 


26 


— Kile-lah. 


49 


— Sule-no. 


4- 


—Sit. 


27 


— Kile-el. 


5° 


— Im-le. 


5- 


— Im. 


28 


— Kile-ic. 


5i 


— Imle-aim. 


6. 


— Lah. 


29 


— Kile-no. 


52 


— Imle-ki. 


7- 


—El. 


30 


— Zah-le. 


53 


— Imle-zah. 


8. 


— Ic. 


3i 


— Zahle-aim. 


54 


— Imle-su. 


9- 


—No. 


32 


— Zahle-zah. 


55 


— Imle-im. 


IO. 


—End. 


33 


— Zahle-ki. 


56 


— Imle-lah. 


ii. 


—Est. 


34 


— Zahle-su. 


57 


— Imle-el. 


12. 


— Ro. 


35 


— Zahle-im. 


58 


— Imle-ic. 


13- 


— Zah-do. 


36 


— Zahle-lali. 


59 


— Imle-no. 


14. 


— Sudoo. 


37 


— Zahle-el. 


60 


— Lah-le. 


i5- 


— Im-doo. 


33 


— Zahle-ic. 


61 


— Lahle-aim. 


16. 


— Lah-doo. 


39 


— Zahle-no. 


62 


— Lahle-ki. 


i/- 


— El-doo. 


40 


— Su-le. 


63 


— Lahle-zah. 


18 


— Ic-doo. 


41 


— Sule-aim. 


64 


— Lahle-su. 


19. 


— Xo-doo. 


42 


— Sule-ki. 


65 


— Lahle-im. 


20. 


— Ki-le. 


43 


— Sule-zah. 


66 


— Lahle-la. 


21. 


— Kile-aim. 


44 


— Sule-su. 


67 


— Lahle-el. 


22. 


—Kile-Id. 


45 


— Sule-im. 


68 


— Lahle-ic. 


23 


— Kile-zah. 


46 


— Sule-lah. 


69 


. — Lahle-no. 



110 



PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 



71 

73 
74 

75 

76 

77 
78 

79 
80, 



70. — El-le. 81. — Icle-aim. 92. — Nole-ki. 

— Elle-ki. 82. — Icle-ki. 93. — Xole-zah. 

— Elle-tim. 83. — Icle-zah. 94. — Xole-su. 

Elle-zah. 84. — Icle-su. 95. — Xole-im. 

— Elle-su. 85. — Icle-im. 96. — X^ole-lah. 

— Elle-im. 86. — Icle-lah. 97. — Xole-el. 

— Elle-lah. 87.— Icle-el. 98.— Xole-ic. 

— Elle-el. 88. — Icle-ic. 99. — X^ole-no. 

— Elle-ic. 89. — Icle-no. 100. — Aim-hoo. 

— Elle-no. 90. — Xo-le. 

— Ic-le. 91. — X T ole-aim. 

The word "hoo" means "hundred. The word "milli" 
stands for "thousands" in the English language. The 
word "zule" means "millions," and a millionaire in the Cat 
language is a "zuluaim." 

Concerning the sense of the arrangement of sounds 
for the numbers I have nothing to say, for I cannot account 
for their selection, but the musical sweetness of the sounds 
in conjunction is wonderfully striking. Mark the eu- 
phony of the language in the expression of numbers con- 
junctively, for instance, in expressing the amount ninety- 
nine millions, seven hundred and forty-three thousands, 
two hundred and thirty-four — 4k nole-no zulus, el hoo sule- 
zah millis, ki hoo zahle-su Again, let the ear catch the 
music as I give you, in the Cat language, the expression 
of one hundred and fifty-seven millions, six hundred and 
fifty-four thousands, eight hundred and thirty-nine — "aim 
hoo imle-el zulus, lah hoo imle-su millis, ic hoo zahle-no." 
Once more, let me express the euphony in the interpreta- 
tion into the Cat language of eight hundred and eighty- 
eight millions, four hundred and ninety-one thousands, 
seven hundred and sixty-five — ''ic hoo icle-ic zulus, su hoo 



CAT WORDS IN COMMON USE. Ill 

nole-aim millis, el hoo lahle-im." Now take the table and 
you may find much pleasure in making up your own com- 
binations of figures, none of which will be other than mu- 
sical. 

The expression of the time of day by the man on the 
tramway, is the expression of the time of day in the Cat 
language by the feline as, for instance, in telling that the 
time was eight-eighteen, the Cat would say "ic ic-doo;" 
twelve forty-five would be "ro sule-im;" nine thirty-seven, 
"no zahle-le;" three thirty-three, "zah zahle-zah;" eight 
thirty-eight, "ic zahle-ic;" two twenty-two, "ki kile-ki;" 
four thirty-nine, "su zahle-no;" five fifty-five, "im imle-im;" 
six twenty-three, "lah kile-zah," and so forth. 



XXII. 

A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF WORDS. 

It is not my intention in this mere paper to give 
a lexicon of the feline language. So short a treatise could 
not comprise so elaborate a/ work. Even were the space 
adequate, I have not, as yet, accumulated the informa- 
tion, because the time devoted to the subject has not been 
adequate to the labor of investigation, which is, neces- 
sarily, intricate and far-reaching. Neither do I propose 
to mystify the reader by giving that most misleading of 
all inventions of the linguist, a grammar of the feline lan- 
guage, any more than I intend to inflict a dictionary upon 
the world. If I succeed in presenting to the reader a 
comprehensive, or in any appreciable or satisfactory degree 
comprehensive conception of the Cat language, demon- 
strating what I know of my own knowledge, after years 
of investigation, that the Cat has a distinct, simple and 
fully adequate language, universal for all particular pur- 
poses, and intelligible to all felines, as well as to all hu- 
manity who will seek to acquire it, I will have accom- 
plished my object for the present. In this paper my de- 
sire is to lay the foundation for a larger structure in the 
future. My greatest desire is to interest the world in this 
worthy subject and induce investigations by others. I 
have no wish to be selfishly exclusive. I do not seek 
any honor or remuneration for my labors and discoveries. 
My reward will come with the reward to the feline, which 
must necessarily follow that elevation of the Cat succeed- 
ing the recognition of the fact claimed by me, 

112 



COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF WORDS. 113 

1 have not yet discovered that any naturalist, linguist, 
philologist or scientist has, thus far, either presented or 
advocated the theory of the feline language comprehen- 
sive enough to be understood by man, but I bear in mind 
what your great Shakespeare wrote, 'There are more 
things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreampt of 
in your philosophy," and allow, without dispute, that all 
I have written may have been thought out and even 
printed by some other writer than myself, but it is, at 
least, new to me, and I think the reader will admit that 
it is new to him as an entirety. Of course every reader 
has heard the peculiar cries and expressions of the Cat, 
and will remember some word or words, and will have 
no difficulty in following up his or her investigations. 

Remembering that mere words form but a very small 
part of the feline language, I desire to lay particular stress 
upon the signs which, in the Cat language, are paramount 
and always intelligible to man, no matter what tongue he 
may choose to speak or from what part of the world he 
may come. One of the beauties, as well as one of the 
advantages of the muscular signs of an expression is that 
it needs no grammar, no dictionary, no elaborate treatise 
upon rhetoric, etymology, syntax, prosody or other ad- 
vantages of belles-lettres, to refine and perfect it. Be- 
cause of this happy fact, the uneducated man, as we are 
apt to call those who are ignorant of our acquirements, 
may express his thoughts as fluently, as correctly and as 
gracefully as his superiors in knowledge, wealth and re- 
finement. By the sign-language a whole sentence may 
be expressed better in a fraction of a second than by the 
word language in a much greater space of time. There- 
fere, its importance is of inestimable value, 



\ 

114 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

I have already given seventeen of the most im- 
portant words of the feline language, with their English 
equivalents, as follows: 

Aelio Food. 

Lae Milk. 

Parriere Open. 

Aliloo • Water. 

Bl Meat. 

Ptlee-bl Mouse meat. 

Bleeme-bl Cooked meat. 

Pad Foot. 

Leo Head. 

Pro • Nail or claw. 

Tut Limb. 

Papoo Body. 

Oolie • Fur. 

Mi-ouw Beware. 

Purrieu Satisfaction or content. 

Yow Extermination. 

Mieouw . . • Here. 



XXIII. 

A MUSICAL LANGUAGE. 

To correctly interpret the words of a sentence, the 
important fact must be borne in mind that the order of 
speech is not the same in the feline tongue as in almost 
any other language. I claim to be master of forty-nine 
different and distinct languages, and none but the Latin 
and the French — my native tongue— approach in regular- 
ity the order of speech of the feline language. In the lat- 
ter the order of speech is as it was with Adam. Prim- 
itively, in the construction of sentences, the most imp r'.ant 
word of the subject matter was given first. I claim that 
all languages would be bettered, to a great extent, if this 
order were observed, and I cannot withhold my con- 
demnation of the inconsistent and reckless men who false- 
ly asserted themselves to be learned, who carelessly con- 
trived many of the languages of communities of people. 
I believe the language of signs to be God's language, and 
that it cannot be improved upon. I never have found a 
grammar of any language, not even the French gram- 
mar, all sufficient and adequate to the purposes for which 
it is supposed to have been intended. In fact, you may 
say that grammars are beyond my comprehension, if 
you like, and I will not deny the allegation, for I know! 
that they are beyond the understanding of the grand ma- 
jority of human beings of all tongues. 

Neither have I ever found a dictionary, in any lan- 
guage, which gives correct definitions of a majority of 

115 



116 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

the words in common use. The reader has been in- 
formed of my estimation of the great American diction- 
ary compiled by Noah Webster, who was, I have no 
doubt, a very good and erudite man, but one subject to 
strong temptations, such, for instance, as those of pub- 
lishers, whose blandishments are irresistible to many 
writers and apt to mislead the honest author. 

In the feline language the rule is to place the noun 
or the verb first in the sentence, thus preparing the mind 
of the hearer for what is to follow. To my thinking, this 
is the proper form of speech and the only arrangement of 
words for any language. I never could admire the 
speaker who launches out in a mystifying rhapsody on 
some human being or some subject near his heart, by 
saying something after this manner: "Mr. Chairman, I 
am about to name a gentleman who," et cetera, and "a 
man w r ell known to all the world as a," et cetera. In this 
strain long continued, until the hearers tire of the mystifi- 
cation and call loudly, in their justifiable impatience, for 
the inconsistent orator to give the name of the individual, 
as he should have done at first, so that the hearers might 
compare notes while the eulogy was proceeding. When 
I read, or listen to the reading of a letter, I want to 
know, first of all, the name of the writer, for in him cen- 
tres all the interest I may have in the information con- 
tained in the communication. By the measure of my in- 
terest in the writer, I measure the interest in his- letter. 

According to the primal order of speech and the man- 
ner of the construction of sentences in the Cat language, 
you will hear such utterances as these: "Milk give me," 
"Meat I want," "Alary I love," "Going out, my mistress?" 
"Sick I am," "Happy are my babies," 



A MUSICAL LANGUAGE. 11? 

In the translation of words of the feline language 
the inflection of the voice must constantly be kept in 
mind, for this, as well as the sound, denotes the meaning' 
intended to be conveyed. For instance, "meouw," spoken 
in the ordinary tone of voice, means ''how/' and is a 
salutation of good-will, expressed in English by ''Good 
morning," "Good evening," or "How d'ye do?" When 
the same word is uttered in a high tone of voice the first 
syllable "me," strongly emphasized, as indicated in ' me- 
ouw," hatred, or something akin to it, is expressed by the 
feline. Similarly, the word "purrieu," when spoken with 
a long roll of the letter "r" and a rising inflection to the 
last syllable, is a call of the mother to her kittens; when 
spoken with a shrill inflection to the last syllable, the 
word is a note of warning to her loved ones, and when 
the word is uttered in an ordinary tone of voice, while the 
Cat rubs her side against the dress of her mistress, it de- 
notes satisfaction, affection, or it may be a part of the 
feline's system of cajolery. The word "yew," also, when 
uttered as an explosive, is the Cat's strongest expression 
of hatred, and a declaration of war, but it is, also, her 
word for expressing a feeling of pain, or giving notice that 
she is ill, when uttered in an ordinary, or perhaps, in a 
low tone of voice. In short, there is scarcely a word in 
the feline language whose meaning is not subject to four 
or more directly opposite interpretations, according to 
the inflections given in its expression. "Poopoo" means 
tired — "poopoo" with a slight emphasis upon the first 
syllable means sleep — "poopoo" with a strong emphasis 
upon the last syllable means work, and this drives the 
paterfamilias out after food for the infants and mother, 
but when the last syllable is spoken in an explosive tone, 



118 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

such as poor Mr. Caudle might have uttered when hen- 
pecked by his tantalizing wife during her curtain lec- 
tures. The same word "poopoo" when uttered with a 
falling tone on the last syllable, is an expression of sor- 
row and grief. 

I do not know of any sounds more soothing to the 
nerves of man as musical, or as musically correct in 
rythm, intonation or melody, as the song of the Cat when 
at peace with all the world. I have listened to it many 
times, and many times endeavored to translate the words 
of the song, but, owing to the fact that she sings with 
closed mouth, no word has been distinct enough to sepa- 
rate from other words of the song. Perhaps at no distant 
day science, through the medium of electricity, may fur- 
nish a means of discovering not only the words of the 
singer, but also many words of the feline language which, 
through ignorance, are now mouthed by the Cat for lack 
of knowledge of the importance of emphasis and clear- 
ness of expression. 



XXIV. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF SIGNS. 

Signs, in the feline language, are almost invariably 
made through the medium of the muscles, and are ade- 
quate to every expression. To this language they are an 
absolute desideratum. Almost invariably they accompany 
the word-signs of the language from a habitually un- 
constrained feeling and a desire to better convey the 
meaning of the speaker. 

To put into words every such expressions is more 
than word-language is capable of, which is the strongest 
proof of the inadequateness of words for the proper and 
sufficient expression of ideas, and the superiority of signs 
for the manifestation of ideas and desires. No tiresome, 
misleading and fallacious grammar, no stuffy, lame, mean- 
ingless dictionary, no wearisome spelling-book, contain- 
ing words which are all "at sixes/' born in the prize-ring, 
with a heritage of hatred for each other, and refusing 
forever to become reconciled one to the other; no un- 
pronounceable pronouncing dictionary, in which words 
are all zigzag, stubbornly resisting every attempt to 
straighten out and stand them upright, like a man, but 
determined to inscribe themselves upon the brain in 
tcvery conceivable pyrotechnical contempt ,of straight 
lines or uniformity in any respect, askew in reckless profli- 
gacy, in defiance of euphony and as uncontrollable as they 
are funny; no ridiculously prolix analyzer, no hobbling 
treatise upon syntax or prosody of a heterogeneous lan- 

119 



120 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

guage of word-signs, invented to confound those who 
ssek, as well as those who possess a knowledge of the 
language of signs. Yet many signs refuse to be dis- 
graced by being rendered into words. 

Noticeable among those of the signs unpronounce- 
able are many expressed by the sons of Judah, Levi and 
Benjamin, such as the bending forward of the shoulders 
and extending of the hands, palms upward, and the pla- 
cing of the index finger to the right hand upon the right 
side of the nose; the Frenchman's shrug of the shoul- 
ders, the gyration of the Englishman's ringer while the end 
of the thumb rests upon the point of his nose; the twirl of 
the Irishman's shillelah, and his expressive manner of 
puffing smoke from his short-stemmed dhudeen ; the sud- 
den change from animation to stolidity in the German, 
and the multitudinous and inexpressible signs of the 
gesticulating children of sunny Italy. 

In the sign language of the Cat an expression 'is 
conveyed in the same manner as by the human being, but 
the feline has a great advantage over man in the posses- 
sion of more utilizing forces. There is the language of 
the ear, the tail, the limb, the body, the facial, including 
the mouth, the nose, the eye, the brow, the chin, the lip 
and the whiskers, the motion of the whole and the signifi- 
cant general appearance, as in the carriage while in mo- 
tion, and the form when at rest. 

The language of the tail cannot be misinterpreted, 
suggestive as it is of the feelings of the Cat. When she 
raises it, like a flagstaff, we know that she is proud of 
herself and satisfied with her condition, as well as the con- 
dition of all other things. When the appendage is an 
appendage to all intents and purposes, and streams out 



THE IMPORTANCE OP SIGNS. 121 

in the rear of its possessor, she is not letting the grass 
grow under her feet. When it waves from side to side it 
is a token of dislike of position and significant of a 
change. When it curls under her body it is a sign of 
fear, and when it is extended with the fur on end, 
''like quills upon the fretful porcupine/' there is a strong 
probability that there will be commingled in the air un- 
theological imprecations, a sulphurous blue tinge and 
loose fur. When it lashes from side to side it signifies a 
war of extermination. When it twitches, that is a sign 
of amusement. When it is pointed toward the fire it 
speaks of rain. When it inclines toward the door it says 
that its mistress may go shopping without an umbrella, 
and while it is curled upon its side it betokens that all is 
quiet along the owner's line of life. 

These, among many signs given by use of the tail, 
have been noted by everybody. The facial signs are more 
numerous, and a multitude of signs find means of com- 
munication through the medium of the ear, the limbs, the 
feet and the trunk. So plain must the signs be to every 
human being, of whatever mental capacity, that I deem 
it a work of supererogation to occupy the reader's time 
in an explanation of what is so palpably apparent, and I 
therefore leave the subject, hoping that watchful care and 
pleasant study will fully develop the feline language to 
the end that the Cat may be understood as she really is, 
and elevated from a degrading position to one of still 
greater usefulness. In conjunction with the study of 
the feline language, and as an aid to its acquirement, I 
would recommend the remodeling of the English lan- 
guage, so that it may, to a larger degree, be compre- 
hended by those who are acquainted with it. I would 



192 PUSSY AND HER LANGUAGE. 

direct attention particularly to the words ending in 
"ough," such as "cough, bough, rough, though, through, 
although, enough, sough, tough, trough, and plough." 

I would have you notice that you seem undecided 
which to say, whether "men clothing," or "men's 
clothing," the plural of "man" being "men." You will re- 
member that the plural of "ox" is "oxen," not "oxes," 
the plural of "fox" is not "foxen," but "foxes." I am sur- 
prised when I take a glass of wine with an English- 
speaking gentleman to see him touch my glass with the 
rim of his own and to hear him say: "Here we go!" 
while he remains stationary and makes no attempt to 
leave me. I am hoping for the time to come when the 
reformation of the English language will be so complete 
that when the conductor on a tramway cries "look out!" 
he will mean what he says, so that the Frenchman may 
save his head from being crushed by putting it out of the 
carriage window because of the misdirection of the offi- 
cial of the train. I shall hope for such reformation as 
will save me from insulting a widow, unintentionally, by 
innocently telling her that I am aware that her worthy 
and lamented husband has kicked over the bucket, be- 
cause I was informed that it was the proper expression in 
the English for our French word "mort." 

Hoping, by your aid, for better things for my fa- 
vorite, the Cat, and thanking you very much for your 
kind attention to my paper, I have the honor of wishing 
vou au revoir. ALPHONSE LEON GRLAIALDI. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF SIGNS. 123 

The work of the Professor is complete as far as he 
has gone. I shall expect to hear from him again, some 
day, if his paper meets with encouragement from the peo- 
ple of this country. 

There can be no doubt that with the aid of the phono- 
graph and other modern instruments which have re- 
cently been discovered, and which he so significantly 
anticipated in his references to electricity, great progress 
will be made in translating and disseminating the feline 
language. In aid of this object, as well as to povide 
proper homes and medical attendance for the felines, with 
an eye to their comfort and the improvement of the 
breed, material assistance should be given by the ruling 
powers in every nation. It is a subject of vast impor- 
tance and I leave it for the consideration of the great 
American public and other nations as well. 

MARVIN R. CLARK. 



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We tyave a i^iceTom , fye is deatf; To a r&f, 
j*lnd f)i'sfurisas soft as a mitten, 
^-fe is spotted wifl? wh>ite fyoucfl) as black asaljat 
jtfnd tyougt) aged-is as spry as & kitten 



jCbm never seems tired of v/avsF}ir>g bis face, 
jflnd l?e keeps fjimself tidy ovnd slick 
jpes as cleanty as if be belonged to our race 
,»nd I tyink tt)o\ts wf;y "Toms never sick. 





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^ow tye kepf Ijimself always so clean, 
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GEO. W. CHADWICK, 



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B. J. LANG, 



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HENRY HOLDEN HUSS, 

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7 



